Hmm ... racism, homosexuality, redemption, a southern setting—you've got my attention, press release for a self-published novel. Tell me more.
Elijah, the protagonist in the book by the same name, is a black baby born into a white southern Klan family. His father hates the child and plans to kill him and the mother. The seven-year-old brother challenges the father and saves the child, hiding Elijah in a dark basement.
Alright, so far so good. There, Elijah is visited by the ghosts of great composers and is taught by them.
Well, that's a twist I didn't see coming, but sure, I'll go along with it. Continue.
He becomes a child prodigy, and he and his brother Joshua ultimately become lovers.
Wait, why does he become lovers with—
Elijah's future father also becomes Elijah's lover and is able to help guide Elijah to a happy and useful life.
Wait wait wait, slow down—he has sex with his brother and his adoptive father? Now, I am a southerner who'd get it on with a cousin just to keep a proud, offensive regional stereotype alive ("Always keep them yankees guessing" is my motto), but nuclear-family incest crosses the line, even in salacious self-published novels.
See, when I was visited by the ghost of To Kill a Mockingbird film composer Elmer Bernstein last year, he specifically told me, "Homosexuality's no big deal, but incest is bad bad bad. Avoid it at all costs. Even if your sister looked like Natalie Wood in her prime, it'd still be a dicey proposition." And what if you're a guy and your brother looks like a young Robert Redford? Or your adoptive dad looks like a late-'70s Warren Beatty? "That bastard still owes me money!"
Obviously a sore subject for Mr. Bernstein's ghost. I didn't bring it up again, and he hasn't visited since. And I'm still not a 32-year-old child prodigy of film-score composing, so thanks for nothin', Elmer. But, you know ... rest in peace and all.
In 2003's Bruce Almighty and 2007's Evan Almighty, Freeman plays God. Or, rather, he plays the role of God. Yes, it's another case of the Oscar winner being typecast as a wise old black man, but at least in these two movies he plays the wisest and oldest black man of them all. I haven't seen either one, but now I'm beginning to wonder if Freeman ad-libbed lines about Americans liking bad food and bad TV. Never stop pushing that agenda of yours, sir.
This summer Freeman's starring in The Dark Knight alongside Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, and Michael Caine, and in Wanted opposite Angelina Jolie. On July 18 everyone at work received an e-mail from the head of the IT department in Atlanta that read: "Don't open any e-mails that talk about nude photos of Angelina Jolie. They will appear to come from either yourself or someone you have e-mail'd previously."
Thanks, but as Morgan Freeman is my witness, I'm pretty sure I'd remember sending nude photos of Angelina Jolie to myself.
A shoe, an empty two-liter bottle of Fanta, a cassette case for the Phantom of the Opera original cast recording (cassette missing), and two empty condom wrappers.I didn't realize Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber was going to be in Chicago this weekend, but he's clearly on the prowl.
Nineteen years ago the first Batman film made $100 million in ten days, setting a record. It also had the biggest opening weekend of all time: $42 million. But that was 1989. Now The Dark Knight, the sixth Batman film but only the second in director Christopher Nolan's "reboot" of the franchise, stands to make $300 million in ten days, after a record-breaking opening weekend of $158 million.
Nolan's first Batman film, 2005's Batman Begins, made $205 million in its theatrical run. The general rule used to be that a sequel was expected to earn 60 percent of its predecessor's box office take, with diminishing returns each time out. But that rule changed earlier this decade, as far as I can tell, when sequels like Rush Hour 2 (2001), The Mummy Returns (2001), X2 (2003), and Shrek 2 (2004) all topped the first installments in their franchises. Shrek 2 is the most striking example: 2001's Shrek made $267 million, which is nothing to be ashamed of, but Shrek 2 made $441 million three years later.
Below is the New York Times article from July 4, 1989, that talks about Batman's record-breaking gross 19 years ago. Remember when $100 million was the magic number for a movie to gross in theaters? Now franchise films routinely cost that much or more (The Dark Knight has a production price tag of $185 million), and grossing $100 million in just three days seems almost commonplace.
'Batman' Sets Sales Record: $100 Million in 10 Days
By Aljean Harmetz
Inexorably swooping down on movie audiences for the second weekend in a row, ''Batman'' continues to dominate the box office. The movie broke another record on Sunday. In just 10 days, the movie, from Warner Brothers, has sold $100.2 million worth of tickets, breaking the record of ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,'' which reached $100 million on its 19th day.
At Warner Brothers, normally the most phlegmatic of studios, executives boiled over with emotion—grinning, joking, and describing the weekend as ''Batweek No. 2.''
Barry Reardon, the president of distribution at the studio, is predicting that ''Batman'' will sell a minimum of $250 million worth of tickets. The studio says its research shows that 13- to 18-year-olds are already going back to see the movie three and four times. It is this repeat business that propels a movie into the Top 10. Although it is far too early to tell whether ''Batman'' will challenge ''E. T.'' and ''Star Wars,'' the two most successful movies ever made, Mr. Reardon said he thought it would pass ''Return of the Jedi'' for third place.
Predictions of Success
Mr. Reardon said that by Friday ''Batman'' will have earned $90 million in film rentals, that portion of the ticket sales that is returned to a movie's distributor. The most successful movies ever produced by Warner Brothers were ''The Exorcist,'' which had film rentals of $89 million and ''Superman'' with film rentals of $82.8 million.
The top movies at the box office last weekend were ''Batman'' with ticket sales of $30 million, Disney's ''Honey, I Shrunk the Kids'' ($13.1 million), Columbia's ''Karate Kid III'' ($10.4 million), Columbia's ''Ghostbusters II'' ($9 million), Paramount's ''Indiana Jones'' ($7 million) and Disney's ''Dead Poets Society'' ($6.7 million).
Of the three movies that opened last weekend, Orion's ''Great Balls of Fire'' is considered dead, having grossed a paltry $3.9 million in 1,417 theaters.
'Do the Right Thing' Does Well
By contrast, Universal's ''Do the Right Thing,'' Spike Lee's disturbing comedy about good intentions and racial violence, sold $3.5 million worth of tickets in just 353 theaters. Universal's research shows that ''Do the Right Thing,'' which has gotten glowing reviews, is playing equally well in black and white neighborhoods. The big question is whether the movie will continue to do well when it broadens to 1,000 theaters.
Although ''Karate Kid'' made more than $10 million at 1,560 theaters, its future does not look bright. The movie took in less money on Saturday than it did on Friday, something which happens only when a movie has bad word of mouth.
The major disappointments of the summer so far are Clint Eastwood's ''Pink Cadillac,'' which has grossed less than $12 million for Warner Brothers, and Paramount's ''Star Trek V: The Final Frontier,'' which continues to sink. ''Star Trek III,'' the weakest of the first four films in the series, brought Paramount $39 million in film rentals, or close to $80 million at the box office. (A studio usually ends up with 50 percent of the box-office receipts.) ''Star Trek V'' has reached $42.4 million in ticket sales.
That's the subject heading of a spam e-mail I received today at work. Here's the body of the e-mail: "Oprah Winfrey announces wedding plans." Wow, whoever that boy was, he must've had a massive crush on the big O.
But he's not alone, of course. The entire nation seems to have a massive crush on the big O, though I doubt the majority of her fans are psychos who would slice a friend's ear off to get the billionaire entrepreneur's attention. Most of her talk-show audience isn't made up of preteen boys either. (Would they tune in to Tyra Banks's talk show instead? Nah, probably not—too much female discourse on fashion, weight, and relationships, and not enough of the former Victoria's Secret/Sports Illustrated supermodel's skin on display. But nowhere near as corrosive to your soul as a typical Jerry Springer episode.) Oprah's fan base consists primarily of women, and lots of 'em.
Last November Oprah came to my hometown—Macon, Georgia—to tape her show's annual installment of "Oprah's Favorite Things." I didn't know what an episode of her favorite things would entail—mountains of money? unlimited power over mankind? sitting around the house naked?—and the audience (4,500 requested tickets, but only 300 were chosen) didn't seem to know what she had in store for them, but once she said the three magic words, the Macon City Auditorium exploded. Middle-aged women lost their damn minds, y'all, and chaos ensued. No blood was shed, but it was touch and go for a few seconds. (A few men were in attendance too, but I assumed they were just there for aesthetic purposes. Or they're gay.) The tears! The high-pitched shrieking! The joyful, spontaneous embracing of thy studio-audience neighbor!
These women were excited, and I can see why—they walked out of the city auditorium that day with a bunch of expensive crap, compliments of their benevolent hero. Plus they were treated to a special holiday-themed performance by singer Josh Groban, accompanied on piano by big-time record producer David Foster, the antihero of everyone's favorite soft-rock-loving Norwegian, Terje Fjelde. But what exactly made Oprah decide to descend from above, i.e. Chicago, to bestow her gifts of space-age refrigerators and stylish watches on her believers in middle Georgia? Well, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's AccessAtlanta Web site:
[Macon] may have only 235,000 TV households, but Oprah's rationale stems from loyalty. "Macon has the highest ratings for 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' ever since we went national in 1986," Winfrey said in a statement.
That means 45 percent of TVs that are on in Macon any given weekday at 4 p.m. is set to Oprah, compared to a still solid 15 percent in Atlanta on WSB-TV.
In your "solid" face, Atlanta! Most of your residents are too busy sitting in traffic and creating smog at 4:00 to be at home watching TV. That's why you need TVs in your cars. And if you start watching The Oprah Winfrey Show on a regular basis and boosting those Nielsen ratings in your city, maybe she'll buy all of you new cars with dashboard monitors that are automatically programmed to turn on Oprah at 4:00 and drown out whatever music, cell-phone call, or repetitive child you're listening to at the time. But you also have to vote for Obama in November. Twice. Don't argue!
Oprah was the subject of a recent Chicago Reader cover story. Actually, her omnipotent influence was the subject. Is Oprah bigger than Jesus? Yes, but it's better for everyone if I say it rather than her. Otherwise she might end up marrying Yoko Ono, and that's a wedding none of her fans want to hear about via spam e-mail, especially the ones who are prone to slicing their friends' ears off.
I finally finished a draft from last month and one from as far back as December in addition to two from March, just in time to brighten my 2.3 readers' lives with the glare of their computer monitors instead of skin-cancer-causing sunshine.
I recently got around to reading an article I clipped from LA Weekly last year called "Sucking in the '70s," by Kate Sullivan, who writes about listening to a rerun of American Top 40 from March of '78 on XM Satellite Radio and being amazed at how many of the songs are still in our collective consciousness and how many have stood the test of time as examples of excellence in pop craftsmanship. All this despite 1978 supposedly being a bad year for the quality of pop music, with disco invading every corner of the mainstream, and punk rock giving it the finger over in the margins.
All this music was the most commercialized crap the record industry could crank out. And most of it gets played on radios, stereos, iPods and jukeboxes every day, bringing pleasure to millions. But 1978 is even more impressive when you add to the equation what was happening off the Top 40 chart—in punk, new wave, metal, electronica, folk, reggae, rap. Pretty amazing, right? It's difficult to imagine almost anything from the Top 40 of the past few years enduring for decades to come; sadly, the same goes for the indie scene.
I often feel like a curmudgeon when it comes to things like people cursing in public more and more often, as if the F word is so commonplace now I should just get used to it, or riding their bikes on the sidewalk long past the age of 12, but I try not to be a curmudgeon about music. I love the music of the '70s more than that of any other decade, but my heart belongs to plenty of songs from the '80s too (which is when I started becoming aware of what was on the radio), especially ones I've heard for the first time in the last few years thanks to blogs like Lost in the '80s. The '90s produced a ton of classics as well, and though radio has gone through a lot of changes since the early '90s, when I was in high school and stopped listening on a regular basis, I'm still happy when a sunny pop song like Sara Bareilles's "Love Song" can break through on radio and reach lots of people.
Music has absolutely gotten worse. Except it hasn't. And if you think the music of today is the best ever, you're absolutely right. Except you're wrong. This argument will never be settled, and most of it has to do with one's age. I love the music of the '70s, but in the early part of that decade, when my parents were the age I am now, they might've thought the product being pushed on AM radio didn't come close to matching what Motown, Stax, and bands like the Beatles were creating in the '60s. And they're right. Except they're wrong.
Music will never die. And neither will our valid opinions about its quality. But in the end they are just opinions. So the next time you're riding your bike on the sidewalk and you don't hear me yelling at you because your iPod ear buds are blasting the latest, greatest hip-hop single that's making you happier than any song in recent memory, embrace that feeling and don't let anyone tell you music was better when they were your age. But first and foremost, please get the fuck off the sidewalk.
Below is an oddly worded sentiment I found earlier today at the bottom of an e-mail from a friend of a friend:
"God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in HIM!"
Yeah, like God really cares about the report card you give Him. He's God! I'm pretty sure His ego can withstand your lack of fear or faith, puny mortal.
Before you ask random strangers for money, take off your ear buds and press pause on your iPod. That way they'll have your undivided attention when they respond with something along the lines of "You have got to be kidding me."
On the air each weekday morning WBEZ newsreader Lisa Lavez and traffic reporter Abby Ryan sound like former friends who aren't happy that they still have to work together. Abby always clips the end of "You're welcome" after Lisa says, "Thank you," as if she knows Lisa's gratitude doesn't reach one millimeter beyond that microphone. Does Lisa realize what it takes to update traffic reports every morning? Does she know that Abby suffers from acrophobia and would get the shakes real bad if she ever tried to go up in a whirlybird? (I don't know that for a fact, but I bet I'm right.) She might even wet her pants (I bet I'm right about that too), but do you care, Lisa? No! Because you're the one who reads the news, and therefore you think you're a big shot. "Look at me on my news-reading throne! I press this button and this happens, and when I press that button that happens. Fa-la-la-la-la!"
Girlfriend, you need an attitude adjustment. And Abby, you need to smile through the tears and possibly fall out of a news chopper to help you conquer that fear I claim you have. My point is, people are listening, so you two either need to bury the hatchet or get a room. And call me before you make your decision so I can plan my evening accordingly. Thank you. (You're welcome.)
In the November 15, 2007, issue of the Sacramento News & Review, Josh Fernandez interviewed heavy metal singer Sebastian Bach about his career, including his time as the frontman for Skid Row and his new solo album, Angel Down. Here are some uncorrected excerpts:
You know, Angel Down gives me the same feeling as the first time I put on Mötley Crüe's Too Fast for Love.
Oh wow! Really?
Yeah, dude, right when the song "Angel Down" came on I was like, "Holy Shit!"
Yeaaahhhhhhh! Hahaha! Well, the song "Angel Down" is great. It makes you turn your stereo up because the intro is quiet, so you're like, "What's goin' on?" Then it's like, fuckin', "Boooooom! It's over!"
Yeah!
It kicks your ass! I made it like that, dude—for me. I'm trying to make an album that you can put in your iPod next to Slave to the Grind and fucking it makes sense. And that's not easy.
Would you be pissed if someone said that Angel Down is better than anything Skid Row has ever done?
Would I be pissed? I'd kiss the motherfucker!
Oh shit.
[A few songs later in Fernandez's set list ...]
I was reading in an interview when I think you were 20-something. You were like, "When I'm 39, my voice will be at its peak." [Bach is now 39.]
Is that what I said?
Yeah dude. And you're like, "I'm gonna' have long-ass hair like Crystal Gayle."
Ha! No way!
And finally, you're like, "and I'm still going to be rocking!"
That's right!
And you still are, dude!
That's totally true! And my hair is getting back to fucking Crystal Gayle level here. I'm on track!
Good.
[Now for the power ballad that shows off Fernandez's vulnerable side ...]
You know, when I heard "Falling Into You," I think I fell in love with you a little bit.
Ahhhhhh!!!! [Pause] That's OK!
Ha, does that make you uncomfortable?
That's fine with me. No. I wrote it with Desmond Child. I know he wouldn't be uncomfortable about it.
When you were approached by MTV with Celebrity Rap Superstar, were you kind of bummed out at first?
I kinda just rolled my eyes. My attitude is kind of like, "Uh, is this what you want? This is what you want? It's what you want, right? Here. Here you go." Phhhhhesh.
Jesus.
Like, that is my attitude. I've been doing television shows for MTV for 20 years—this is another one of them. That's what that is. You know?
On Saturday I was at a street festival here in Chicago with some friends, and I got to know their friends, two sisters named Kristin and Lauren. They're tall. I'm not. But I do have smaller hands than them.
Oh, right—that's not something to brag about.
They mentioned an episode of Seinfeld I've never seen in which Jerry dates a woman with "man hands," and any time the woman touches him the camera cuts to a close-up of a man's hands.
On Monday I read an article in the current issue of Spin magazine about Coldplay's new album, and how they still haven't met the recently installed head of their record label, EMI. His name is Guy Hands. Hahaha, your name makes me laugh, powerful businessman!
Hands is the owner of a private equity firm that gobbled up EMI for $6.4 billion last year; corporate restructuring will soon lead to layoffs for nearly 2,000 of EMI's 5,500 employees. At least the unemployed can say they were defeated at the hands of Hands. (What, not funny? Maybe you'll appreciate it more if you get to keep your job.)
On January 21, 1999, nearly ten years ago, 170 of A&M Records' 200 staffers were laid off after Seagram's Universal Music Group bought the company along with the Mercury, Geffen, and Island labels and started consolidating its new properties.
Think about it—only 30 people kept their jobs. If I'd been one of them, I'm not sure I would've attended the "We're All Screwed" party, since the fine print on the party's banner would've said, "Except for You, Kiss Ass!"
I was laid off from a job almost eight years ago after three months of gainful employment. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise: I got out before the job market slowed down later that year, and my delicate lady hands were back at work one month later at a new job, where I gently bathed them in milk and honey and a sprinkling of rose petals every other hour. I like to spoil myself. Because I'm worth it.
I get so tired of the media and its liberal bias, especially when that bias extends into the area of anti-simian discrimination.The photo on the right was used alongside a real news story last week to undermine our president, but what's wrong with a commander in chief who resembles a chimpanzee? Those who drag their knuckles along the ground are closer to the earth and therefore better equipped to address the concerns of the common man, such as the current Central American banana crisis. Who will supply us with our bananas in these troubled times? We have no bananas!
But we mustn't panic. Instead we must put our trust in the banana Republican who leads our country. He may be a lame duck, but ... wait, he can't be both a chimp and a duck. And if he drags his knuckles on the ground, doesn't that make him a gorilla, not a chimp? Or do apes drag their knuckles, not gorillas? And do all simians eat bananas, or am I totally stereotyping them? I bet one of those smart gorillas who knows sign language could settle this once and for all. And if none of them are available, I'm sure someone could travel forward in time and ask Dr. Zaius. But we shouldn't send some liberal, monkey-hating clown like Al Franken. He'll sarcastically call Dr. Zaius a "damn dirty ape," the good doctor won't get the reference, and then we'll never get the answers we need.
What Happens in Vegas was released over a month ago, but the film's poster still haunts me.
I read a review that said the film's cinematography doesn't do Cameron Diaz any favors. Well, neither does this poster. Meanwhile, Ashton Kutcher's facial expression and body language seem to be saying, "Can you believe this girl? Is she crazy or what? Seriously, you guys."
Kutcher studied at LIF, otherwise known as the Louder Is Funnier school of comedy. Sometimes louder really is funnier, but Kutcher is a former male model, and people like me tend to be suspicious of pretty boys who do comedy, a form of entertainment that springs from personal pain, failure, and rejection. Has Ashton Kutcher been rejected once in his entire life? Okay, maybe in 2002 he asked out Joan Collins and she said no so he had to settle for Demi Moore instead, but I doubt it. All I know is that his self-pity will never equal mine. I've got warehouses full of it, so don't even bother trying to catch up, Ashton.
Here's one more promotional picture from What Happens in Vegas:
Shudder. But so far the film's made about $75 million. Obviously, somebody's been paying to see it. And by "somebody" I mean women who are forcing their boyfriends or husbands to tag along and put up with loud but pretty comedy for 90 minutes.
Last fall at work I came across a battered copy of the Beverly Hills Ninja soundtrack that had been left behind by a laid-off coworker. The movie came out in January of '97, and usually when a studio releases a film at the very beginning of the year, it's a sign that the product's no good. However, in the last few years studios have begun to realize that the three-day Martin Luther King Day weekend can be a lucrative one, hence Paramount's release of the monster movie Cloverfield this past January. It had a big opening weekend—$46 million—and then trailed off pretty quickly, with a final gross of $80 million in theaters. But perception is what rules in Hollywood, so the final verdict was "hit," not "disappointment," probably because Cloverfield cost $25 million to make instead of $100 million. I'm sure it'll make millions more on video.
Beverly Hills Ninja also came out right before Martin Luther King Day, but it made $12 million in its opening weekend and $31 million total. I've only seen parts of it on TV, and those parts didn't make me want to see the whole thing. It's the last movie Chris Farley appeared in before he died on December 18, 1997, at the age of 33 (the same age as his hero, John Belushi, and his savior, Jesus Christ), though two more were released after his death. Desperate Housewives' Nicollette Sheridan and Farley's Saturday Night Livecostar Chris Rock are in it too, though Rock's never had anything nice to say about the film.
Ninja was directed by Dennis Dugan, who started out as an actor in the '70s on TV shows like The Rockford Files (1974-'80) and its short-lived spin-off, Richie Brockelman, Private Eye (1978). (Actually, the character first appeared in a 1976 TV movie, then showed up on a two-hour episode of Rockford in the spring of '78 in an attempt to get that show's fans to watch Richie Brockelman in the same time slot a few weeks later. But the series only lasted six episodes, and then it was back to Rockford for one more two-hour episode in the spring of '79.)
Dugan was also Maddie Hayes's quickie-marriage husband, Walter Bishop, for about five seconds on Moonlightingin 1988, as well as Steve Martin's jackass boss inParenthood (1989). He also played a character named Tom Trimble in 1979's The Spaceman and King Arthur, which I think my brother and I saw on TV when we were little. Coincidentally, Tom Trimble is a friend of our dad's. Not the fictional character—a real person named Tom Trimble.
Dugan directed some episodic television in the late '80s, including one of the final episodes of Moonlighting (he also appeared in shadows in the very last episode as a TV executive telling David and Maddie why nobody watched Moonlighting anymore), then made his feature debut with Problem Child in 1990. It starred TV mainstay John Ritter and earned five times its budget despite horrible reviews. In other words, a surprise hit.
Dugan's next film was 1992's Brain Donors, an attempt at a modern-day Marx Brothers farce. John Turturro played the Groucho surrogate, and it looked like nothing else in theaters at that time, but it came and went quickly, grossing less than a million dollars. After that it was back to directing TV until Adam Sandler's Happy Gilmore (1996), a low-budget comedy likeProblem Child that earned almost four times what it cost and became an even bigger hit on video and cable. Dugan then directed Beverly Hills Ninja, which didn't gross that much less than Happy Gilmore—$31 million compared to Happy's $38 million—but the all-important perception was that its gross wasn't anything to cheer about.
Dugan returned to Sandler's nurturing embrace for 1999's Big Daddy, and since then he's found all of his box-office success working with the popular comedian, directing him in last year's I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry and this summer's You Don't Mess With the Zohan, which opens today. Sandler also produced Dugan's The Benchwarmers (2006), which earned a respectable $59 million, whereas Chuck and Larry grossed $120 million, and Zohan will most likely be another $100 million hit for Sandler, whose loyal audience of eternal 12-year-olds loves him in comedies, if not dramas. Between Big Daddy and The Benchwarmers, Dugan floundered with 2001's Saving Silverman ($19 million) and 2003's Martin Lawrence vehicle National Security ($36 million), which was released, like Beverly Hills Ninja, in mid-January.
The Ninja soundtrack is one of many mid- to late-'90s movie soundtracks that was unfortunately influenced by the soundtracks for Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, meaning that in between songs like Blondie's "One Way or Another" (easily their most overplayed song) and Carl Douglas's "Kung Fu Fighting" (not a shining example of '70s kitsch) there are snippets of dialogue from the movie, such as the following exchange, which kicks off the album:
CHRIS ROCK: Ninja? You're a ninja? Get outta here! You a ninja?! CHRIS FARLEY: (bored by the question but defensive at the same time) Yes. I am a ninja. CHRIS ROCK: You know, I took a few karate lessons myself. I mean, I'm not as advanced as you. I'm what you might call a tangerine belt, a orange belt, you know. I'm one of them citrus colors, you know what I'm sayin'.
Doesn't exactly have the snap of "Any of you fucking pricks move, and I'll execute every motherfucking last one of ya," does it? Tarantino writes memorable dialogue, but that's not true of the majority of screenwriters, so with a soundtrack like Ninja's you're stuck with dialogue tracks titled "You're the big, fat Ninja, aren't you?" and "... Yes, I guess I did." We wanna see fatty Farley fall down, not hear him talk! The soundtrack also features Patti Rothberg's listless cover of "Kung Fu Fighting" and the Hazies' pointless retread of "Turning Japanese." On the positive side, the soundtrack includes War's "Low Rider," Baltimora's "Tarzan Boy," and Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy," so it's not a total waste, but the whole thing's only 36 minutes long, so if you paid more than $9.99 for it in '97, you got hosed.
Around the same time I discovered the Ninja soundtrack at work last October, I came across a promotional DVD containing the trailer for Kung Fu Panda, which opens today to mess with Zohan for weekend box-office dominance. The DVD came in its own plastic container, like DVDs you buy in stores, and features its own version of the film's poster, displaying the title, Jack Black's name, the Paramount and DreamWorks studio logos, the tagline "Prepare for Awesomeness," and the reminder that the movie is "in theaters June 6, 2008." All that for a trailer that lasts one minute and 11 seconds. Imagine how much money was wasted to package and distribute those 71 seconds to media outlets like the Chicago Reader! Naturally, I'm impressed. (It doesn't take much.)
Compare the posters for Ninja and Panda. In many ways Jack Black is the comedic successor to John Belushi, a distinction that Farley probably wanted more than Black ever did, but he had some of the same addictions as his hero, which helped bring about his early death. Farley's sense of humor tended toward the juvenile, but you couldn't deny his stage/screen presence on Saturday Night Live and his commitment to characters like motivational speaker Matt Foley. Some of my Farley-derived laughter was of the nervous kind when I watched him on SNL in high school, because I wasn't sure if I was about to witness the overweight actor go into cardiac arrest on live television. But that tension, shared between the actor and the viewer, helped produce some memorable performances.
I have a feeling Kung Fu Panda will do better at the box office than Beverly Hills Ninja. But will it open to bigger numbers this weekend than Dennis Dugan's newest comedy? Well, Sandler does kick people in the face in You Don't Mess With the Zohan. Maybe all of the eternal 12-year-olds will show up for Zohan this weekend if their long-suffering wives agree to take the kids off their hands at screenings of Kung Fu Panda. Sorry, ladies, but you should've known on the second date when you slept over at his apartment and saw his videotape collection that this was going to happen.
In March I saw Ridley Scott's American Gangster on DVD. It's an entertaining account of a true story, but I'd heard back in November, when it was released, that the film's ending leaves the impression that Frank Lucas, played by Denzel Washington, was essentially a good guy. I can't say I disagree with that impression.
Richie Roberts, the police detective who brought down Lucas and is played by Russell Crowe, practically pats Lucas on the back in the film's final moments for helping him bust crooked NYPD cops who were working with the Mafia to sell heroin on the streets of New York, but who were also getting in the way of Lucas's dominance of the market in Harlem. Lucas helped destroy hundreds, maybe thousands, of lives in Harlem in the early '70s with his highly potent brand of heroin, but he also ratted out some corrupt cops after he had no other options, and for that he should be commended, right? As if the moral repugnance of corrupt cops and drug dealers can be rated like movies, with the cops getting four stars compared to drug dealers' three and a half. Washington played a dirty cop in Training Day (2001), and though he's brilliantly charismatic in that film, he's also scary as hell because his character, Alonzo Harris, fully believes in his illegal methods of catching the bad guys who don't have badges. I think Scott wants you to forget to a certain degree how much of a bad guy Lucas is, though I'm not saying I don't appreciate shades of gray in bad guys, particularly ones drawn from real life. I just don't think Lucas should've been let off the hook for one second. In the final scene of American Gangster, as Lucas is leaving prison in 1991 after his second stint (he was sentenced to 70 years in 1976 but served only 5, then was sentenced to 7 more after a second conviction in 1984), Public Enemy's "Can't Truss It" plays in the background. I also recently saw Movin' On Up, a documentary on Curtis Mayfield in which Public Enemy frontman Chuck D talks about Mayfield's soundtrack to Superfly, a 1972 blaxploitation film centering on a heroin dealer who wants to go straight (he's glorified like Lucas is in American Gangster, only more so). Chuck D says in Movin' On Up that while growing up in Harlem in the early '70s he saw firsthand the effects of heroin addiction on older family members. I doubt he'd think of Lucas as any kind of hero, anti- or otherwise, just as Mayfield was shocked when he saw Superfly for the first time and realized how far the film's message veered from the one he was trying to get across in his songs, including the title track, "Pusherman," "Freddie's Dead," and "No Thing on Me (Cocaine Song)." American Gangster is based on an article by Mark Jacobson called "The Return of Superfly." Published inNew York magazine in 2000, it lists some of the different monikers for heroin that were common in Harlem almost 40 years ago:
Back in the early seventies, there were many "brands" of dope in Harlem. Tru Blu, Mean Machine, Could Be Fatal, Dick Down, Boody, Cooley High, Capone, Ding Dong, Fuck Me, Fuck You, Nice, Nice to Be Nice, Oh—Can't Get Enough of That Funky Stuff, Tragic Magic, Gerber, The Judge, 32, 32-20, O.D., Correct, Official Correct, Past Due, Payback, Revenge, Green Tape, Red Tape, Rush, Swear to God, PraisePraisePraise, KillKillKill, Killer 1, Killer 2, KKK, Good Pussy, Taster's Choice, Harlem Hijack, Joint, Insured for Life, and Insured for Death were only a few of the brand names rubber-stamped onto cellophane bags. But none sold like Frank Lucas's Blue Magic.
In the past couple of weeks I've seen many Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull product tie-ins at the grocery store—M&M's, Dr Pepper, Cheez-Its, and various Kellogg's cereals, including Indy's very own breakfast cereal. What I've noticed about the packaging for these products is that, for the most part, they feature images of Harrison Ford from 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark and 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, not Crystal Skull.
I don't doubt that Shia LaBeouf's character was written into the new film's screenplay to add youth appeal since Ford is now 65 years old, not 38 like he was when he filmed Raiders or 46 when he filmed Last Crusade, and Indiana Jones is in his 60s now as well. But this is Indiana freakin' Jones we're talking about, one of the most iconic characters in film history. His current visage can still sell corn flakes even if that visage is craggier than it used to be. And even if kids today weren't born until well after Last Crusade exited theaters 19 years ago, I'm pretty sure they've seen the first three Indy films on DVD, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're intrigued by the idea of a man their grandfather's age being a daredevil archaeologist. Show Indiana Jones as he really is, marketing gurus! None of us are getting any younger, including your sugar-swilling target demographic.
By the by, the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, comes out in July. Back in the summer of '89, Tim Burton's Batman came out on June 23, almost one month after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was released. It's hard to believe it's been 19 years, but it's good to see both of these characters back on the big screen in the same summer.
Navy SEALs, a B movie from the summer of 1990 starring Charlie Sheen and reliable character actors like Bill Paxton, Dennis Haysbert, Michael Biehn, and S. Epatha Merkerson, was on AMC last night. For an action movie it's a pretty good comedy, but that's not meant as an insult to the cast or crew since Navy SEALs doesn't take itself too seriously. Maybe it's just a case of a movie that was injected with too much testosterone 18 years ago that now plays as a goofy love story between American jocks who kill Arab terrorists for a living.
The best scene I saw features the SEALs enjoying a day off from killing by going to a golf course and trying to hit each other with their carts and clubs while drinking lots of beer. They even find time to play a little golf.
But when Sheen notices his convertible being towed from the parking lot he jumps on a random bicycle and chases after the tow truck, eventually catching up to it and driving his car away, but not before dodging an oncoming 18-wheeler as he makes his escape.
Sheen lets out a triumphant "Yeah!" and looks completely fulfilled, as any red-blooded heterosexual male should be, once he's reunited with his vehicle. He's just risked life and limb to avoid paying a $100 towing charge for a car he'd illegally parked in the first place, and in the process he got to steal a kid's bike and leave it in a ditch on the side of the road.
Admit it—you'd be aroused too.
Below are some examples of overripe dialogue from Navy SEALs, courtesy of IMDB's "memorable quotes" page for the film. Remember, it came out in 1990, when the Schwarzenegger template of smug one-liners delivered in the general direction of freshly dead bad guys was the norm in Hollywood action movies.
Curran (Michael Biehn): This is starting to piss me off! Now cool out! Hawkins (Charlie Sheen): Oh, I am cool, man. You should see me when I'm hot!
Pilot: Lieutenant, you guys are incredible. Thank you. Curran: There's no reason to thank us because we don't exist. You never saw us. This never happened. Hawkins: One more thing—you're welcome.
Navy Intelligence Officer: Did you engage hostiles? Dane (Bill Paxton): I vaporized hostiles.
Hawkins: What's he saying? Leary (Rick Rossovich): Something about your mother. [Hawkins lowers his gun and slightly alters his aim, hitting the terrorist directly in the forehead with a well-aimed shot.] Hawkins: Never talk about Mom.
[After Hawkins blows a door open with a shotgun ...] Curran: What was that shit at the door? Hawkins: Room service.
[Before throwing a grenade at propane tanks ...] Hawkins: I hope these fuckers paid their gas bill.
[On the way to Graham's (Dennis Haysbert) wedding, which is interrupted before it can even begin with news of an urgent mission ...] Hawkins: I'm sorry, guys, but I cannot be a part of this funeral procession. I'm outta here. [He jumps off the moving Jeep and the bridge it's crossing into the water 20 feet below while shouting—] Hawkins: SEE YOU LATERRRRRRR!!!!
[Hawkins is posing in front of a mirror, gun drawn, when Curran walks in.] Hawkins: I am so jacked up. I can feel it flowing through me, right through me.
Hawkins: You gotta stick it out there and not be afraid to get it cut off. That's what I always say.
Curran: Brain grenade? [He throws Hawkins a beer.] Hawkins: What's the problem—still thinking about bad guys? [Curran nods.] Hawkins: We go in there, we hit 'em and forget 'em. That's what we do.
Curran: Why'd you leave the doorway? Were you looking for a rush? A little rush? Well, I hope you got it. Because you just toasted a man you put in his grave.
[Curran and Hawkins are arguing about Graham's death.] Hawkins: Alright! I did it! I fucked up! I fucked up and he is gone! And there isn't a damn thing I can do about it, so what the hell do you want from me? Huh?! [Curran walks away without answering.]
XTC's Andy Partridge on the demo version of "Holly Up on Poppy" (courtesy of the blog Timedoor and, presumably, the liner notes of Partridge's Fuzzy Warbles 3, which is why I'm leaving the punctuation intact):
"When [my daughter] Holly rode her rocking horse 'Poppy', she would say 'Daddy, I like its Poppy song'. That song was the low rhythmic rumble and high un-oiled squeak of its moving parts. I tried to capture that in this demo from 11th of May 1990. Of course I failed but isn't that the curse and motivation of all art? To bottle the unbottleable. I also have a rocking horse fixation, but you knew that."
Frank Gehry on the creative process, from Sydney Pollack's 2006 documentary, Sketches of Frank Gehry:
Pollack: "Is starting hard?"
Gehry: "You know it is. I don't know what you do when you start, but I clean my desk, I make a lot of stupid appointments that I make sound important. Avoidance, delay, denial. I'm always scared that I'm not gonna know what to do. It's a terrifying moment. And then when I start I'm always amazed: 'So ... that wasn't so bad.'"
The revelation by Sex and the City's costar Cynthia Nixon that one of the principal characters will die in the theatrical version, due out on May 30, has touched off a wildfire of speculation on Internet blogs about who the character will be. Rumors that a character would be killed off had been circulating for months. When asked about them at the ShoWest convention in Las Vegas last month, another costar, Sarah Jessica Parker, predicted that people will be "very surprised" by what they see on screen. "There's a seriousness about something that happens in this movie," she added, without directly responding to the question. She added that she thought that writer-director Michael Patrick King "wrote the role of a lifetime for me." Bloggers have speculated about each of the female leads as well as Mr. Big.
Or maybe they all get stomped into the ground by the monster from Cloverfield. I guess we'll find out this summer.
I had no idea until the other day that the word snafu began as an acronym in World War II that stood for "situation normal all fucked up." Now I'm wondering if Fubar, the Star Wars character name I was given by my childhood friends, had a double meaning.
But let me tell you about a snafu in terms of Philly soul, the subgenre of music I love so much. I recently heard TeddyPendergrass's "Turn Off the Lights" for the first time in a very long time. It was written by Philadelphia International Records maestros Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, but it's not one of their better songs. I doubt they consider it one of their crowning achievements, either, but it's hard not to wince at the following lyrics:
Let's take a shower, shower together I'll wash your body and you'll wash mine, yeah Rub me down in some hot oils, baby And I'll do the same thing to you
Just turn off the lights, come to me Girl, I wanna give you a special treat, you're so sweet Turn off the lights and let's get cozy See, you're the only one in the world that I need
You can write better lyrics than those for the Teddy Bear, K-Jee and El-H! (Plus the rhyming of "treat" and "sweet" in this sort of R&B number, followed by Teddy making a kissing noise, is too cute—either you talk dirty or you don't.) What the world needs now—and what it needed even in 1979—was subtlety. "Turn Off the Lights" was made for the Quiet Storm, after all, not the Loud 'n' Tacky, Cologne-on-the-Crotch Storm. Some say that kind of storm could signal the end of days, so let's not push it. Teddy, on the other hand, can push it all he wants after he and his special lady "Close the Door," but I don't need to hear about it—or hear the words to "Turn Off the Lights"—ever again.
Tonight as I was walking home from work I saw the following sign next to the sidewalk:
DOG WASTE ATTRACTS AND FEEDS RATS
That's disgusting—calling attention to rats' junk-food preferences in such a public manner. I doubt the rats are proud of themselves for eating dog waste, but to say they're attracted to it? There's no need to bring sexual fetishes into this discussion. No need at all.
See, when I was visited by the ghost of To Kill a Mockingbird film composer Elmer Bernstein last year, he specifically told me, "Homosexuality's no big deal, but incest is bad bad bad. Avoid it at all costs. Even if your sister looked like Natalie Wood in her prime, it'd still be a dicey proposition." And what if you're a guy and your brother looks like a young Robert Redford? Or your adoptive dad looks like a late-'70s Warren Beatty? "That bastard still owes me money!"
