The spirit of Lionel Hutz lives on!

My friend Jeremy alerted me to this item on IMDB's gossip page on Tuesday:

A 33-year-old mechanic has been arrested in connection with the robbery of Kirsten Dunst's New York hotel suite. Dunst's penthouse at the Soho Grand was broken into on August 9. The gang stole designer bags, $2,500 in cash, credit and ID cards, two digital cameras, a cell phone and an iPod music player. James Jimenez, 33, was arrested on Sunday and charged with burglary and grand larceny. Police believe Jimenez was the accomplice of Jarrod Beinerman, who was arrested last week. Jimenez's lawyer, John Bostany, tells the New York Post, "I know James has the deepest respect for Spider-Man and would never want anything to happen to Spider-Man's girlfriend."

Bostany added, "Of course, if Spider-Man had shown up in time to thwart Mr. Beinerman and Mr. Jiminez's dastardly scheme, my services wouldn't have been required in the first place. Now, if you'll excuse me, a certain senator from Idaho needs my help." Bostany then leaped out a window and fell to his death, apparently unaware that he didn't possess the superhuman power of flight.

tribute

Last month a few coworkers and I paid some sort of tribute to Ingmar Bergman in a series of interoffice e-mails the day after he died. We were just being sarcastic and trying to take our mind off potential layoffs the week after our newspaper was sold to a smaller company, but one of the coworkers edited the e-mails, a la Jefitoblog's Chartburn series, for a blog posting of his own. Some film buffs who left comments appreciated the humor, some didn't. All I know is that when I die I hope someone, somewhere, says of me, "I don't get it. Then again I never get your jokes." Because until that person gets your jokes, you live on, albeit in a very frustrated piece of his or her heart.

"Shake that, shake that booty, let me go"

That last post was a result of me getting sidetracked from my original goal, which was to compare the lyrics of Sly & the Family Stone's 1974 song "Loose Booty" as printed in the liner notes of their recently reissued album Small Talk and in the CD booklet of the album's Japanese import, which I bought at Tower Records in Atlanta back in '96.

I first heard "Loose Booty" in May of '95, and sometime in '96 I discovered that the opening line was "Shadrach Meshach Abednego," possibly that summer when I first heard the Beastie Boys' "Shadrach," which samples "Loose Booty." But according to the lyrics in Small Talk's Japanese liner notes, the opening line is:

Shake that, shake that booty, let me go

Put the booty right up front, Japan! I like the way you think. In general I'm not very good at hearing lyrics correctly the first time, and if they're printed in a CD booklet I forget again and again to look at them when I'm confused about a particular line. And if I see the lyrics to a song I've known since I was a child but the real words don't match up with the ones I've been singing since 1981, see ya later, real lyrics. I've given those fake lyrics a loving home in my brain too long to abandon them now. Here's the first verse of "Loose Booty," Japanese style:

Well, when you're tryin' to flee from any fakin' grin
Tell you what to do, how to bring the money in
Find yourself some rich dude, let it all hang out
Get into some dancing, do what it's all about

Ha ha, hee hee! Oh, you crazy English-to-Japanese-to-English interpreter—those can't be the right words. "Any fakin' grin"? Good one.

But you tried, and that's what matters. C'mere so I can give you a condescending pat on the back. Now let's look at the official lyrics:

When you're tryin' to flee from
Any fakin' grin
Tell you what to do fun
Get in the frame of mind I'm in
Find yourself some room to
Let it all hang out
Get into some dancin'
Do what it's all about

See, Japan? You were way off with your ... wait a second ... "any fakin' grin" is correct. And Sly's "tell you what to do fun" lyric is something I would've laughed at you for passing off as real if you'd used it first. I guess I owe you—

No! Never apologize, Robert. Remember Pearl Harbor. Use that anger. After all, the greatest generation won't be around to use it much longer, so it's up to you—I mean, me—to keep the flame of hate burning for them. (Mental note: Once this post is finished, buy a brand-new Honda Accord and drive it into a tree. That'll show 'em.)

Here's the second verse in the Japanese CD's booklet:

I can be confusin', any given day
If you feel like losin', get on, find the way
Stuff will be amazin', here is all you do
How minutes turn in days in doing what I do

"Stuff will be amazin'"? Stuff is amazing, Japan. The Bible says so, but since you're already unfamiliar with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Jesus's wisecracking uncles, why should I bother to tell you the exact book and chapter where you can find the quote? (Fine, I'll give you a hint—Book of Fallopians, somewhere in the middle.)

Now the original lyrics:

Life can be confusin'
Any given day
And if you feel like losin'
Get on out the way
Results will be amazin'
Here's all you do
Minutes turn to days in
Doin' what I do

I'm losing patience here. Sly, if you don't throw me a bone soon I'm going to write a biopic and pitch it to Cuba Gooding Jr.

Do I have your attention now? His dad was the lead singer of the Main Ingredient around the same time you were at your peak. He could probably fake your stage moves well enough. It's in his blood. So don't think my threat can't become reality. Mr. Daddy Day Camp will play you on the big screen if you cross me.

Here's the final verse from the land of the rising sun:

Now I got to get on, see you in the mind
I want to stay your friend, oh, leave the blue behind
Only till you send me, watch me, all you're free
Feel good to relax it, shake it on like me

Japan, this is Sly Stone you're interpreting. He's a great lyricist. And in his heyday, refrigerator-magnet poetry didn't exist. All you're presenting here is jibber-jabber. Sly, please show these naive islanders how it's done:

Now I got to get on
See you in the mind
Don't want to see you fret on
Leave the blue behind
You owe it to yourself and
Plus and all is free
Feels good to relax and shake it off like me

"Don't want to see you fret on"? "You owe it to yourself and / Plus and all is free"? What the hell does any of that mean?!

I give up. You win, Japan. I mean, you already conquered American culture in the 1980s with your cars and your electronics and your huge corporations like Sony, which bought out CBS Records and subsidiary labels like Epic Records, which of course Sly and the Family Stone used to be on. And now Sony is reissuing Sly's albums with brand-new liner notes and reprinted lyrics and ...

Oh. Muh. Guh.

I've been had.

Will the real Sly Stone lyrics for "Loose Booty" please stand up? Do you even exist? I really am going to have to listen to the song closely for once just to make sure the Small Talk reissue's lyrics are correct. Proofreading isn't high on the list of record labels' priorities these days. Maybe that's because just trying to stay alive in the age of declining CD sales is the top priority.

I have to hand it to you, Japan. It would be an honor to receive a condescending pat on the back from you. Plus I paid full price to see Sony's Spider-Man 3 back in May, and I didn't get my money's worth. Then again, Sony spent something like $400 million just to get that bloated sequel into theaters, and it'll take a long time for them to earn a profit from it.

Let's just call it even, shall we? I need to wrap this up and get down to the nearest Honda dealership.

Sly's back.

"I do regular things a lot," he says. "But it's probably more of a Sly Stone life. It's probably ... it's probably not very normal."

News of Vanity Fair's interview with Sly Stone for its August issue appeared in early July, I think. I meant to write about it at that time and tie it in with what you were originally going to see below, but now that's a separate post. (Confused? I feel for you.) So pretend it's still early July for a second ...

HEY, SLY STONE IS BACK!

Okay, now you say, "Wow, that's big news, Robert!" It sure is! And you heard it here first!

Yes, Sly Stone is back, and not just for an odd Grammy Awards appearance like the one he made last year. The VF article mentions the trainwreckiness of that appearance, which was meant to be a full Sly and the Family Stone reunion in the planning stages but ended up featuring the Family Stone minus one (former bassist Larry Graham called in sick at the last minute) vamping behind current music stars like Maroon 5 and Will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas, plus older rockers like Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry.

It was essentially a commercial for Epic/Legacy's Different Strokes by Different Folks, a remix/covers album featuring Will.i.am, Maroon 5, and Tyler, among others, recording their versions of the Family Stone's hits over huge chunks of the original songs. Originally released in Starbucks stores in July 2005—and given one of the angriest reviews I've ever seen on allmusic.com, whose writers generally adopt an encouraging tone of "You'll get 'em next time, slugger!" when they don't like an album—it was rereleased with two bonus tracks on February 7, 2006, the day before Sly's crowded Family reunion at the Grammys. When the new edition of Different Strokes came out, allmusic.com's original angry review was replaced with one by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, one of the site's more evenhanded critics.

There was no way to tell that the Family Stone was onstage at the Grammys that night. There were a few lingering shots of keyboardist Rose Stone, Sly's sister, and brief glimpses of drummer Greg Errico, but that's it. Trumpeter Cynthia Robinson, saxophonist Jerry Martini, and guitarist Freddie Stone weren't given any camera time as far as I could tell, not even when Sly appeared near the end of the tribute sporting a blond Mohawk and huge sunglasses. He mumbled his way through parts of "I Want to Take You Higher" and played a few notes on his synthesizer, but right when it looked like his old confidence was returning, he walked to the front of the stage, pointed the microphone at the audience, sang "baby baby baby," then waved and made his exit. Sly Stone's comeback lasted all of two minutes.

It was definitely him onstage that night, but it was hard not to feel like you were seeing a ghost (or a robot). At that point it'd been about 23 years since Sly had released an album, the underrated but still somewhat dull Ain't But the One Way, and 13 years since he'd last made a notable public appearance, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony honoring Sly and the Family Stone. But Sly didn't perform with the band at the January 12, 1993, ceremony, and according to Martini, he wouldn't even make eye contact with some of them.

Sly was assumed by many to be a recluse the past quarter-century, the Howard Hughes of R&B legends. Others thought he'd finally fried his brain from too many drugs in the '70s and '80s or that he'd died sometime in the '90s. But in Vanity Fair the man otherwise known as Sylvester Stewart gives his first interview in over 20 years and says he's ready to record new songs. (He's already been touring Europe this summer with a new version of the Family Stone. He looks sort of like a turtle these days, but that alternately inspiring and chilling voice of his is still intact, if not quite as powerful as before.) If you're a fan it's easy to say, Why record new songs? Sly's been gone for 25 years, and it's not like the last 6 of his recording career produced a lot of great music.

It's true. I bought 1976's Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back as an import back in college and sold it a year later. Sly bottomed out on that album, but Back on the Right Track (1979) and Ain't But the One Way (1982 ... or '83—I've seen both years listed in various places) each have their moments, including the best Sly and the Family Stone song not penned by Sly, Ain't But the One Way's "Ha Ha, Hee Hee," written by saxophonist Pat Rizzo. Its lyrics can be interpreted as an acknowledgment of Sly's downhill slide and a prediction of his early retirement. With Sly singing Rizzo's words, it's almost as if he's delivering the eulogy at his own funeral. "Ha Ha, Hee Hee" includes this eye-opening verse:

Ha ha, hee hee
Nothing to do
You beat the genius in you
But who cares if you are through
Or do
You'll never miss it

And he didn't seem to miss it, at least not until recently. There were rumors in 1995, the year I became a fan, that he was recording a new album, but nothing surfaced. Like I said, it's easy for fans like myself to cringe at the thought of new songs being written long after the fire is assumed to have died out, but since those last three albums left a lot to be desired, it's not like this is the equivalent of the Beatles holding a press conference in 1979 to announce that they're reuniting to record a better swan song than Abbey Road. I still haven't heard Sly's one official solo album, 1975's High on You, except for the songs "I Get High on You" and "Crossword Puzzle," both of which are strong enough and funky enough to warrant a High on You reissue from Sony/Legacy, which rereleased every Sly and the Family Stone album up through 1974's Small Talk back in the spring. Sony/Legacy's logic is that the original version of the Family Stone broke up after that album, therefore the "classic" period ended at that point. Maybe so, but it wouldn't have hurt to reissue every album Sly made for Epic Records back in the '60s and '70s, including High on You and Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back. I'm sure some eager rock journalist out there would've been happy to write the liner notes for either reissue.

Sly's new songs could turn out to be a waste of time, and he probably won't be able to reunite the original Family Stone in its entirety, but this is Sly Stone we're talking about. He's a towering figure in rock and soul history. And he's still here with us on earth, even if he lives on a different planet altogether in his mind. I'm willing to listen to whatever he ends up recording.

Below is a Sly and the Family Stone medley from ABC's Music Scene, probably from the fall of '69. The band performs parts of "Dance to the Music," "Hot Fun in the Summertime," "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey," and "I Want to Take You Higher." I especially love the reaction of the girl in the audience at the 3:55 mark during "Hot Fun." Sly and the Family Stone's music tends to have that effect on people, even today.

Now we know why she left.

"Steve M" left a comment at JasonHare.com two weeks ago that mentioned Daryl Hall & John Oates's video for 1973's "She's Gone," one of their first big hits and still a great song. I use the term "video" loosely, however, because videos from the '70s don't look anything like videos from the '80s, after the creation of MTV made everyone try a lot harder.

I found it impossible to turn away from the "She's Gone" video, and that's saying something, because most videos or movie trailers that I see on YouTube, even the ones that bring back memories of my childhood, can only hold my attention for about a minute. I just don't like watching videos on my computer. Then again, I sit at an uncomfortable desk at home. And I don't have Wi-Fi, so don't say, "Move to the couch, fool."

"She's Gone" really is something else. We see an eyebrow-free Daryl Hall in his androgynous "Ziggy Stardust impersonator" phase, practically nodding off during his close-ups (because he's also a heroin addict impersonator) and not even bothering to lip-synch some of his lines. We also see John Oates in a sleeveless tuxedo shirt; by the end of the video he's put the penguin in "penguin suit."

I love how the duo seem to be on the set of a public-access "community views"-type talk show. This week's topic: "Abandoned luncheonettes: Should we earmark them for historical preservation or blow them up real good in lieu of a Fourth of July fireworks display?" (Next week's topic: "Adult education: Oh yeah! Oh yeah!") The appearance of Hall & Oates's very special unholy guest makes you realize they are in on the joke, but I’m not sure if I laughed for the right reasons.

"You said it wasn't art / So now we're gonna rip you apart"

Recently at Jefitoblog I wrote about what it was like to be young, white, and rap-friendly in the late '80s and early '90s, when hip-hop began its invasion of the mainstream. I just remembered that in 1987, when I was in fifth grade, I wrote a rap song called "I'm Great." It's a cryin' shame that I can't regurgitate the lyrics of the verses for you, but I do remember the chorus:

I'm great and I know it
I'm not afraid to show it
I'm great and I know it
This time I won't blow it

"Know," "show," and "blow" rhyme, see? Rapping is easy. Anyone can do it. Especially 11-year-old white kids who were introduced to it one year earlier thanks to MTV, as opposed to mid-'70s block parties in the Bronx hosted by DJ Kool Herc.

I do appreciate Bob Odenkirk's tribute to my rap songwriting skills in the following Mr. Show sketch. Big ups, Big O.



Skip ahead to the 3:50 mark if you only want to see Odenkirk rap. But if you decide to view the whole thing and then want to see the first half of this two-part sketch, click here.

Let's review a concert!

Wait. I forgot—I hate crowds and I'm kind of claustrophobic. Hmm ... okay, change of plan: instead of going to a concert and then reviewing it, let's stay home and review a bootleg CD of a 20-year-old concert instead. That's right—no visuals, just audio. Who are we gonna hear but not see, me? The Replacements, that's who!

I recently downloaded* a concert by the Replacements from July 23, 1987, at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. The 'Mats, as they're called by some fans, are one of my favorite bands. Paul Westerberg is one of the greatest lyricists of all time, and his melodies combine the best of rock and pop conventions. They never made a bad album. Sure, there are misses in addition to the hits on each of their seven albums, but the Replacements were never caught looking.

They had a reputation for being an amazing band in concert ... if they could keep their shit together. The Replacements were heavy drinkers (a less charitable person might call them "raging alcoholics"), and, well, sometimes drunk people are fun to be around, but usually only if you're drunk yourself, and sometimes they're a huge pain in the ass, especially if you're sober. On July 23, 1987, the Replacements were more the latter than the former.

But I wasn't there, of course. I was 11 at the time and spending a week at my grandparents' house in Douglas, Ga. Maybe if I had been drunk before I listened to this concert it would've helped. But wouldn't you know it, I forgot to shotgun some vodka before I put on the headphones, so the fact that Westerberg kept forgetting the lyrics and the band kept trying to cover songs like "Rebel Rebel" and "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" only to watch them fall apart a minute later didn't help. (The unofficial bootleg of the show is called God, What a Mess.)

Last summer Jefitoblog offered a 'Mats concert from July 27, 1987, where they sounded even worse, especially Westerberg, who seemed to be shredding his vocal cords while missing most of the notes. Bad month? Maybe. Trouble breaking new guitarist Slim Dunlap into the fold? I don't know. At one point during the July 23 show a concertgoer standing near the bootlegger's tape recorder can be heard asking her friend, "Are you having a good time?" I couldn't hear a response. At another point a fan yells, "Fuck you, Paul!" His friend tells him he shouldn't say things like that. The fan disagrees ("They like it!").

When I go to concerts I like to sing along. I do it quietly, because no one paid to hear my voice, but it's a big thrill when I look around the room and see everyone else singing too; I am one with the crowd, and we are one with the band. I don't think anyone wants to hear an album reproduced onstage note for note, even one of their favorites, but I am usually curious how certain songs will translate live without the help of studio magic. I don't mind if a singer wants to change the way he performs a song in concert, but I do like it when he sticks to the script, i.e. the words that are in the songs that are on the albums. The words that fans have memorized just by falling in love with the songs and playing them over and over again. They've made an emotional connection with those songs and often the lyrics themselves. Like I said, Westerberg is one of the greatest lyricists there ever was or ever will be. Here's an example of his talent, from 1985's "Bastards of Young":

The ones who love us best
Are the ones we'll lay to rest
And visit their graves on holidays at best
The ones who love us least
Are the ones we'll die to please
If it's any consolation I don't begin to understand them

Those lyrics hit me like a truck five years ago, even though I first heard "Bastards of Young" in 1993 when I received the album Tim for Christmas. Maybe it was the death of my grandmother in '97 that really drove those lines home once I rediscovered "Bastards." Now that I live in Chicago I only get to visit her grave once a year, when I come home for Christmas. This Christmas I'll be visiting my grandfather's grave as well; he passed away in January. I don't mean to get sappy, but unconditional love, whether from grandparents or parents or any other family member, is the greatest gift any of us will ever receive.

Alright, back to talkin' about drunk people! Westerberg says in the documentary Come Feel Me Tremble (2003) that the reason he has trouble remembering the words to his songs in concert, even now, is because he has ADD, not because he's drunk or high. Well, I can believe that now that he's sober, but in the two concerts I've heard from July of '87, he definitely sounds drunk. He calls the lighting guy at the Beacon Theatre a moron at one point, which elicits laughs and applause from the audience, but it just made me wince. A drunk lead singer who can't finish his songs, who makes up lyrics on the spot in front of paying customers, comes across like an even bigger asshole when he accuses the tech guy of doing a sloppy job.

But the audience at the Beacon seems to be almost as drunk as Paul (and possibly Tommy, Chris, and Slim), so they don't mind too much. They don't sound like they're paying that much attention either. There's lots and lots of talking near the tape recorder's microphone, and the cheers that accompany the beginning of songs like "I Will Dare" or "Black Diamond" quickly die down once the audience realizes the band's going to stumble through another one. I've heard lots of Lemonheads bootlegs where the band takes five or six songs to hit their stride, but once they do, their momentum is never lost. Not so with the two Replacements bootlegs from July of '87. However, I do have a bootleg from July of '85, when Bob Stinson was still in the group, that shows what the Replacements were really capable of in concert, even when they'd had a few—but not a few too many—to drink. Shit, Shower & Shave, a bootleg from 1989's Don't Tell a Soul tour, is also worth tracking down.

And it's not like there aren't high points in the July 23 show: the covers of "Sweet Home Chicago" and Elvis Presley's "I Can Help" are noteworthy, and the band gets through Hootenanny's "Within Your Reach" and Tim's "Waitress in the Sky" without crashing and burning. As far as crowd chatter goes, the best exchange begins with the guy who can't believe the Replacements covered a Bangles song, "September Gurls." He's corrected by a female fan who informs him that it's originally a Big Star number. The guy's response is predictably, beautifully male: "I know, but it's a Bangles tune." Never admit a woman has bested you in the area of music-geek trivia! (As soon as this guy finishes digging a nice hole for himself in front of the more knowledgeable female fan, another guy yells "'Freebird'!" Wouldn't be a concert without it, I suppose.)

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning of the—

... You know what? In the tradition of the Replacements' Beacon Theatre performance, I'm gonna be sloppy and not finish this concert review. Like my favorite midwestern band, I want to be a lovable loser. Besides, the audio on the Beacon bootleg isn't very good, and why would anyone want to read a review of a concert the reviewer didn't attend, and who does this reviewer think he is anyway?! Besides, tonight I can't hold a pen ... or type on a keyboard ... or keep typing, I mean. Whatever. Shut up. Yeah, fuck you, me! But I mean that in the best possible way. Goodnight, everybody!

I'll leave you with this write-up of the Replacements from a 1987 issue of Creem:

These guys get a bad rap. One day they might be drunk; next day, not so drunk. One day, great onstage; next day, not so, with only moments of greatness. People say they're "the bad boys of rock." If they were boffing 12-year-old girls and doing tons of drugs and selling millions of records—instead of going back after a show to call their girlfriends, making about as much as they'd make in a factory by having fun, being mischievous but basically kind-hearted, and not selling many records but actually being as honest in their own way as John Lennon was in his—they'd be revered. Still, the music's what will matter in the end.

* Thanks to PaulWesterberg.net for the link to the 7/23/87 show in the first place, and Hidden Track for the show itself.

the headline of the week

From Performink, "Chicago's entertainment trade paper for theater and film":

Geena Davis Wants Kids to See More Women

I guess your sons have really been in your hair lately, huh, Geena? I would've suggested summer camp or Vacation Bible School as a way to get them out of the house for a while, but you're the boss—shop around, kids!

didn't see it coming

On Friday afternoon I walked over to the post office to return The Fabulous Baker Boys to Netflix. As I walked in I saw a tall, heavy-set man pushing a frail, elderly woman in a wheelchair. I started to think about life, death, my parents, my grandparents and other older relatives who've passed away, how my nieces are the future made tangible, how parents and children eventually switch roles, how it all makes sense but how none of it is fair for either party ... when suddenly, as I began to make my exit, I heard the woman in the wheelchair bark, "Hurry up!" The tall, heavy-set man replied—in a voice very similar to Mr. Peabody from those old Jay Ward cartoons—"Mother, be quiet!"

Three hours later I was still laughing. I love when life surprises me like that.

He's an adult now.

I wonder if Adam Sandler's getting restless. His new comedy, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, is doing well at the box office, as predicted, but his three "serious" films—Punch-Drunk Love (2002), Spanglish (2004), and Reign Over Me (2007)—all did poorly. His comedy fans didn't follow him to those films, even though all of them received good reviews, or at least reviews that praised Sandler for going outside his comfort zone, and it’s not like he went that far outside that zone for Punch-Drunk Love (although the movie was a lot quirkier than his standard fare, thanks to writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson).

Lots of movie stars, including Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, maintain a "one for me, one for them" filmography, and if Sandler's satisfied with his non-wacky films not making much money, more power to him. But I wonder ... and I sort of worry ... but mostly I wonder.

I do think Sandler has to be one of the nicest megastars working today. I don't find his comedies to be all that funny, but I admire him for remaining loyal to his friends. His comedies are shot by the same stable of directors (Dennis Dugan helmed Happy Gilmore, Big Daddy, and Chuck and Larry; Peter Segal shot Anger Management, 50 First Dates, and The Longest Yard; Frank Coraci directed The Wedding Singer, The Waterboy, and Click; and Steven Brill was forgiven for 2000’s Little Nicky, Sandler’s only comedy bomb, and allowed to direct 2002’s Mr. Deeds, which was a success), and they're populated with the same stable of early-'90s Saturday Night Live costars (Rob Schneider, David Spade, Kevin Nealon, Chris Rock if he's got nothing better to do).

Sandler even produces movies like The Master of Disguise, The Benchwarmers, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, and Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star for his SNL friends to star in. They all look like they were written over the course of a weekend and the first draft was then rushed into production, but it's still nice that Sandler helps those who are less fortunate when it comes to fame.

Let me rephrase that—it's nice that he helps out friends who have comedic talent, even if that talent is temporarily MIA. (David Spade is a prime example of "funny on the small screen, completely and utterly lost on the big screen.") But Sandler also has a habit of putting non-SNL friends like Peter Dante, Jonathan Loughran, and Allen Covert in his movies. Dante and Loughran stick out like sore thumbs when they appear onscreen, and even though Covert can act, he didn't need his own Sandler-produced vehicle, 2006's Grandma's Boy, which naturally costarred Dante and Loughran. I can’t imagine Sandler playing hardball with a studio in the sense of "I'm not doing your big summer comedy for 2009 unless you let my junior-year roommate at NYU star in a movie he wrote about a magical bong," but anything's possible.

Sandler's next movie, according to IMDB, is You Don't Mess With the Zohan, cowritten by Sandler and Judd Apatow, the writer-director of Knocked Up and current king of comedy in Hollywood. As a producer, Apatow has seven movies coming out in the next year. Comedy geeks (including the Onion AV Club’s writers) can't wait to see these movies, but I wonder: is the inevitable backlash against Apatow on its way? Backlash is a bitch, and it’s often caused by oversaturation in the marketplace. Just ask Ben Affleck (or Evan Dando).

I really liked Knocked Up. It wasn't overhyped, thank God. Apatow and his cast even made the relationship between the geek and the hot chick work (then again, Apatow has first-hand knowledge of being a geek who’s married to a hot chick—Knocked Up’s Leslie Mann), but I'm glad the seed was planted that these two people aren't right for each other and it may not work out when all is said and done. Do you think it was an inside joke that Ben and his friends run a celebrity-nudity Web site but Katherine Heigl, who the majority of the world's male population would like to see naked, wore a bra in both her sex scenes? Otherwise I'm inclined to think that Heigl's agent changed the no-nudity clause in her contract at the last second, i.e. even though she was never going to be shown topless, her handlers wanted to make sure that you never even thought she was topless while filming. But seriously, who wears a bra during non-quickie sex? I certainly don't.

Still, I wonder ... with seven comedies coming out in the next year, all of them featuring overlapping cast members and several of them centering on stoner protagonists or lead characters who are teens or twentysomethings, are these movies going to look and sound the same after a while? Not to mention Knocked Up's references to Matisyahu, Eric Bana, and "the shoe bomber," which are going to feel stale ten years from now. Comedian Patton Oswalt said recently in an Onion AV Club interview that as a script consultant for DreamWorks Animation, one of his main goals is to get rid of the pop-culture references that are already in a script because they become dated so quickly.

I mentioned the possible Apatow backlash to my friend Jeremy back in June, and last week he wrote me with this news:

Back to our discussion of a backlash against Judd Apatow et al., the below is from an article in the LA Times about Aaron Sorkin and the failure of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip:

"Bernie Brillstein, the fabled Hollywood manager whose clients included John Belushi and Jim Henson, is convinced that failure is an inevitable byproduct of industry envy and backstabbing. 'Rightly or wrongly, Aaron got a reputation as holier than thou,' Brillstein explains. 'When you put yourself out front in the media, like Aaron did or Judd Apatow is right now, everyone is lying in wait for you. That's the psychology of the town. Once you're anointed, everyone wants the king to fail.'"

Well, I don’t work in Hollywood, and I don’t want Apatow to fail (even though he isn't the director of any of the seven upcoming movies he's producing, he'll almost certainly be blamed if any of them fail), but I don’t want movie theaters to be crammed full of stoner/slacker comedies next year either. I am a fan of Freaks and Geeks, the show Apatow produced for 18 glorious episodes seven years ago, but I don’t think of him or his talented ensemble of actors as a secret I want to keep from other people. Have at 'em, world. Just don’t reach for your pitchforks if Superbad or Forgetting Sarah Marshall or The Pineapple Express or Walk Hard or Drillbit Taylor or Step Brothers or Zohan doesn’t turn out to be another Knocked Up or The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

And now for a completely unnecessary postscript ...

Look, I know I’m the only one who was bothered by this, but I'm gonna say it anyway: in 2005, before The 40-Year-Old Virgin was released, its "coming soon" (pun absolutely intended) poster spelled the title the way I just did, with two hyphens in "40-Year-Old." But once newspaper ads and theater posters started to appear, the first hyphen went away: "40 Year-Old." In the movie itself, when the title appears on the screen, it’s spelled as The 40 Year Old Virgin. Both hyphens vanished into thin air. Apparently the Anti-Hyphen Lobby—I mean, the Anti Hyphen Lobby—has powerful friends in Hollywood.

Blinded by the celebrity light!

Mr. Beckham, try to make sure the celebrity welcome wagon doesn't crush your multimillion-dollar legs under its wheels. Because then we would have to shoot you. And then you would have to go back to Europe. Where you would probably be shot again just to prove that your American handlers didn't do it right. Besides, Tom Cruise is obviously only 14 years old and therefore wouldn't be strong enough to lift those heavy wheels off your legs.

By the way, your wife is an android. Have you seen I, Robot? I have a feeling she's not going to get along with the Fresh Prince.

"Do you like aaaaaaaart?!?!"

Last Sunday at Woodfield Mall's Wentworth Gallery, in Schaumburg, Illinois, Kiss frontman Paul Stanley made a personal appearance to sell and autograph some of his paintings. I wasn't there, but I'm pretty sure this is how it went down:

"Ya know somethin', people, art ain't just about makin' things look pretty or weird. Sometimes it's about gettin' a little crazy and havin' a rock 'n' roll party!!!!"

The middle-aged Kiss fans in the gallery pumped their fists and screamed back at Stanley, while the middle-aged art lovers in their wake politely applauded, hoping to be spared a trampling. Stanley then resumed his speech, converting a famous painter's name into a high-pitched melody.

"I'm talkin' 'bout Vincent Van Gogh-ohh-ohh-ohhhhh!!!! I'm talkin' 'bout after he cut off his ear, people. When he could hear only half the classical lute music he was listenin' to. But that didn't stop him. Not ol' Vincent! He went on to paint flowers and stars and all kinds of crazy things. He had a passion! Just like you over there!"

Stanley began pointing to various people in the crowd.

"Over there! Right over here! That girl near the emergency exit! The guy with the sauvignon blanc in his hand! The pretty lady with the brie and the crackers and the napkin! The Kiss Army soldier eatin' the giant pretzel he bought at the food court!

"You have a passion just like ol' Vincent! A passion for great art created with the spirit of rock 'n' roll! I thank ya from the bottom of my heaaaart for comin' out tonight! You're awesome! Goodnight!"

For his encore Stanley expounded upon Wassily Kandinsky's paintings Black Lines (1913) and Several Circles (1926) and how the elements of chaos and control are important to balance whether you're illuminating a canvas or singing and maneuvering around live pyrotechnics in seven-inch leather heels.

The Arlington Heights Post reported that "the price range for the art by Stanley at the Schaumburg gallery is $1,550 to $60,000." Pretty steep, especially if you're a blue-collar Kiss fan, but he is signing the paintings, so quit your bitchin'. This is Starchild we're talking about, after all, the celestial being with the Noo Yawk accent.

I love the irony-free caption the Post used underneath one of his paintings on its Web site: "Paul Stanley's art is often abstract, but some works feature recognizable images such as heart shapes."

Now you know what to get grandma for Christmas.

In case you're in doubt, I really do respect Kiss as a band and a brand, and I appreciate that Stanley, who's a genuine rock showman, doesn't shoot his mouth off in interviews the way musical partner Gene Simmons does (see: Simmons talking to NPR's Terry Gross in 2002). And as Michael O'Mahony, the Wentworth Gallery's owner, said in the Post, "First and foremost, it's very good art ... It doesn't hurt that it's a famous guy and a rock star, but if it wasn't good, I wouldn't carry it."

Below is a terrific spoken-word piece by Adam Woodrow, the transcript of which I found somewhere on the Internet last year. It's called "The Love Theme From Kiss (Larger Than Life)," and it can be found on Vermiform Records' The Fear of Smell LP (c. 1993):

I'm sitting here listening to Dynasty ... some people call that their disco album. But their real fans know different. Not the kids who collect baseball cards and Kiss shit. I'm talking about those of us who hoped their parents would die in a car crash or something so they could be adopted. Maybe by Gene or Paul or Ace or Peter. I wanted to kill that little piece of shit Adam Rich: it said in Tiger Beat he was Gene's number one fan. That was so fucking unfair. Just because he's a celebrity? Fuck him.

I'm talking about losers from Queens and New Jersey and Long Island who defended Kiss when Van Halen was supposedly king. Kids who later dropped out of high school to work at their father's plumbing supply store. Cheesy chocolate-milk mustaches and faded transfer T-shirts and work boots—unlaced, of course. Girls with big asses and poofy hair and roach-clip feather earrings who still wear leg warmers: these are true Kiss fans. Fans who would take the time to write into Creem or Rip to defend Paul. How dare they say Paul's a fag—Kiss is the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world. How could he be a fag then? Tell us. Kiss isn't a joke to look back on, they weren't a phase. They were the whole fucking world. They weren't an escape because they were my entire reality.

computerless, but not rudderless

On July 4 my laptop computer (a 2004 iBook, if you really must know) started acting funny after I arrived in North Carolina. It wouldn't start up at first, and then I heard a fan noise, as if the computer was cooling down, even though it'd been turned off for the past seven hours. By the next day I could only see the desktop screen for about three minutes before it went to black, and after that all I heard was the fan noise whenever I tried to turn the computer on.

Since last Monday the computer's been in the Apple Store and Apple depot's hands. I was told it would take five to seven days for the "logic board" to be replaced, and when I called AppleCare on Saturday to see if the repairs had been made, an employee whose first language was probably not English told me that my computer was ready to be picked up at the Apple Store. He said, "I see that it was ready to be picked up on June 1." I told him that I hadn't turned it in for repair until July 9. Then his head exploded.

I'm still waiting to get the computer back. Oh, li'l blog, will you and I ever get the momentum back that we had in April? I hope so. In the meantime, my 3.8 readers, why don't you peruse Part One of the Complete Idiot's Guide to Evan Dando and the Lemonheads over at Jefitoblog? I cowrote it with Ken Sumka of Gaper's Blog and WXRT in Chicago. Part Two will be posted next Tuesday.

Finally, to make up for the time the 3.8 of you have wasted the last few weeks coming to this space and discovering nothing new, here's a nice picture:

On the left is my new niece, Sophie, who was born July 3. On the right is her big sister, Olivia, who's two and a half now. Olivia is all sweetness and light, a little girl who likes to "chase the clouds" in her backyard with her parents, her grandparents, her uncle, and whoever else is around. Whenever I'm down from now on, I think I'll go outside and chase the clouds myself. It certainly puts a smile on Olivia's face.

putting the "shit" in "Free shit!"

Pardon me while I look a gift horse directly in the mouth. The following was in an e-mail I received at work today:

I put a bunch of Lollapalooza shirts by the timeclock on 2. They were sent over as freebies to give away at One Night Stands, but they all say 2006. Oops. Beware, some have stains on them too.

unsung, but he can definitely sing

Bunny Sigler is an unsung hero of Philly soul.

In the '70s he wrote songs for the O'Jays ("Sunshine," "Now That We Found Love") and other artists at Philadelphia International Records while contributing backing vocals and guitar in the studio. He also recorded his own songs for the label, including a gospel-ish version of the O'Jays' "Love Train" that cracked the top 30 of Billboard's R&B chart in 1974. He also knows karate, which in my opinion is preferable to knowing "ka-razy."

You can read more about Sigler and the 1996 compilation The Best of Bunny Sigler: Sweeter Than the Berry over at Jefitoblog.

20-foot-tall Simpsons

The Simpsons Movie comes out July 27. The three teaser trailers were worthless, each containing one joke (one of the teasers even commented on the fact that 20th Century Fox didn't have anything to show us yet), but the full-length trailer is surprisingly good. I'm surprised because I didn't expect much from it, having been a loyal Simpsons fan for the past 16+ years but watching it die a slow death since 1996.

In hindsight, the Springfield Isotopes' "Free Torch Night" was a bad idea.

No, the last 11 years haven't been all bad; in fact, some of this season's episodes have been much better than I expected, including "Homerazzi," which aired back in March and was hilarious from start to finish. But part of me does wish the show had been canceled, or ended at the producers' request, back in '95 when every episode was still perfect. If that were the case, old fans would now talk about The Simpsons the way people talk about the Beatles. Instead The Simpsons is often talked about the way people talk about the Rolling Stones post-Exile on Main Street, i.e. "Oh, that show is still on? Huh." One exciting thing about the movie is that old Simpsons writers like Jon Vitti, John Swartzwelder, and David Mirkin have contributed to the screenplay, which bodes well for the final product.

But I look forward to seeing The Simpsons Movie in the theater with newer fans who aren't going to put up with my jaded, boring "things were better back in the '90s" talk. Good for you, newer fans! I hope we can all find something to love in the Simpsons' first big-screen outing.

hip-hop amnesia

Remember P.M. Dawn? The hip-hop duo of Prince Be and DJ Minutemix, otherwise known as brothers Attrell and Jarrett Cordes, respectively, were popular for a few years in the early '90s. And they're performing in Chicago tonight.

They haven't put out an album since 1998 (Minutemix left the group two years ago; Dr. Giggles, a cousin of the Cordes brothers, took his place), and they're not touring behind a new one. So are they touring the country just for the hell of it? Not as far as I can tell—their Web site says they're also playing in Lincolnshire, Illinois, tomorrow night, but that's it. They did two shows in Australia earlier this year, and PMDawnLovesYou.com, which uses a looser definition of "tour" than I do, posted this news back in February:

The tour continues! P.m. Dawn will be heading to Chi-town for a few days starting Friday, February 23rd. You can catch them on LIVE TV, on the WGN Morning News Show, local channel 9. Later that night you can catch P.m. Dawn Live at the Good Times Pub in Elmhurst, IL. And Saturday the 24th, they'll be live at Sharky's in Round Lake Beach, IL.

It sounds like P.M. Dawn has become a bar band. How did that happen? And how come they only book gigs Down Under and in the Land of Lincoln?

It struck me recently that P.M. Dawn was the first Mellow Gold hip-hop act. De La Soul didn't like being called hippies back in '89, but they had nothing on P.M. Dawn's flower power, and no other rappers I can think of were placing songs like "I'd Die Without You" and "Looking Through Patient Eyes" on adult-contemporary playlists. "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss," the hit single from their debut album, Of the Heart, of the Soul and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience (1991), floats along like a cloud, which isn't something you can say—or would even want to say—about the hits of a rapper like DMX.

P.M. Dawn never got that much love from other rappers, and I'm not even talking about the time KRS-One and his posse shoved them offstage during one of their performances in 1992, which inspired them to write "Plastic," an unexpectedly hard-charging track on their second LP, The Bliss Album...? (1993): "So now I'm accused of spiking the punch / And I'll be the scapegoat for faking the funk / But when they set up another prime-time beef / What's hard at first but melts in the heat / They call that plastic." KRS-One was mad that Prince Be had said, "KRS-One is a teacher, but a teacher of what?" in a magazine interview, so he decided to challenge P.M. Dawn during a show. Whether it was KRS-One or one of his friends who punched Prince Be and threw him into the crowd is unclear, but the resulting melee helped reaffirm Prince Be's original point: the rapper who preached nonviolence had chosen to debate P.M. Dawn by way of a physical confrontation.

P.M. Dawn's discography could easily be placed in the unofficial category of "rap music white people like." (Read Michaelangelo Matos's 2000 review of The Best of P.M. Dawn for his assertion that Prince Be is the Brian Wilson of hip-hop.) But somewhere around the middle of The Bliss Album...? Prince Be stopped rapping.

Here's a decent rapper who happens to have a terrific singing voice, so by the time of 1995's Jesus Wept, Be was exclusively crooning on ultramellow tracks like "Sonchyenne" and a cover of Prince's "1999." (Whether or not he was better off rapping his philosophy, as Matos believes, or singing it is hard to say.) But by that point P.M. Dawn's commercial moment had passed, and 1998's Dearest Christian, I'm So Sorry for Bringing You Here. Love, Dad made it seem as if the group's spirituality had eclipsed their ability to make radio-friendly hits.

Although I sold my copy of Dearest Christian a year or so after I bought it, I don't remember P.M. Dawn's religious leanings getting in the way of the music; their songs just weren't as compelling on the fourth go-round. Due to problems they had clearing the rights to unlicensed samples, which also affected Dearest Christian, their fifth album, the Internet-only "Fucked Music," was pulled from the Web in 2000 before anyone except the group's most fervent fans had a chance to hear it.

In 2002 it looked like a new album was finally on its way when the single "Amnesia" was released. One review even said that it was "the lead-off single for P.M. Dawn's The Jim Sullivan Syndrome album," but that album still hasn't been released, possibly because P.M. Dawn was never able to land a deal with a label willing to pay for all the samples they wanted to use. Nevertheless, "Amnesia" is a stunning track all on its own; it's easily one of P.M. Dawn's best, and proof that they're still capable of making sonically rich hip-hop that incorporates elements of soul, pop, and soft rock in unexpected ways.

I hope P.M. Dawn has a good show tonight at the Heartland Cafe in Chicago and tomorrow at the Cubby Bear in Lincolnshire. (Rowdy Cubs fans apparently can't get enough of the blissed-out sounds of P.M. Dawn. Really takes the edge off after a hard day of pounding Old Styles.) But I'd much rather see them deliver on the promise of "Amnesia" by releasing a new album sometime soon.

Sylvester Stallone is #1 on cable!

In the past year I've been surprised by how many of Stallone's movies pop up on cable week in and week out. When I started this post two weekends ago, Rocky II (1979) was on Spike TV. Last weekend Rocky III (1982) was on Spike. When I originally thought about writing this post back in February, Rocky II and III were airing back-to-back on TNT on a Saturday morning, and Stallone's 2000 remake of Get Carter came on TNT that night. (By the way, if you're wondering whether or not Stallone had plastic surgery in the early '80s, watch the ending of Rocky II and the beginning of Rocky III in one sitting and you'll have your evidence.)

Then there was Cliffhanger (1993) on Bravo one Saturday, and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) shows up on AMC now and again. TBS, would you please show Demolition Man (1993) and The Specialist (1994)? Gracias. Oh yeah, didn't I also see Rocky IV (1985) on Spike and TNT last fall and Rocky V (1990) on Spike in January? Indeed I did. Strangely enough, the original Rocky hasn't appeared yet, at least not when I'm flipping through channels. And where's Tango & Cash (1989) and Daylight (1996), cable programmers?

I saw Daylight on opening weekend back in college (don't tell anyone), and I remember seeing a "For Your Consideration" ad for the film in Variety right before the Oscar nominations were announced in early '97. Yeah, I guess Daylight's visual effects were worth considering if you were a voter, but I laughed when I saw "Best Actor: Sylvester Stallone" in the ad. I later found out that some stars make it part of their contract that the studio will push their names for Oscar consideration, whether it's Nicolas Cage in Adaptation or Brendan Fraser in The Mummy.

Anyway, cable channels love re-running Stallone's action movies, and they wouldn't keep airing them if people weren't watching. However, if you want to see a Stallone comedy like Rhinestone (1984) or Oscar (1991) or Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992), or a Stallone drama like F.I.S.T. (1978) or Cop Land (1997), you're out of luck. But pray extra hard and you may be rewarded with a Stallone-directed movie like 1983's Saturday Night Fever sequel, Staying Alive. Stallone even has a writing credit on that one. I wonder how the pitch to Paramount CEO Barry Diller went in 1982 ...

STALLONE: Barry, I love sequels. Love 'em.

DILLER: Yeah, Rocky III looks like it's going to be the biggest one yet. And I heard this character you play in First Blood has the potential to be—

STALLONE: I love 'em so much that I wanna make a sequel to Saturday Night Fever (1977). That's one of your biggest hits, right?

DILLER: Yes. It is. But ... uh ... I'm sorry, but why did you just say "1977"?

STALLONE: I didn't.

DISEMBODIED VOICE FROM BEYOND: Sorry, that was me. I got a little date-happy.

DILLER: Who's "me"?

DISEMBODIED VOICE FROM BEYOND: The guy who's making up this conversation right now.

DILLER: I see.

STALLONE: You're saying I'm not in control of what I'm saying? That I got no free will?

DISEMBODIED VOICE FROM BEYOND: Forget I mentioned it. Please continue.

DILLER: Okay. Sly, let's back up and start with "That's one of your biggest hits," okay?

STALLONE: Got it.

(Stallone pauses, then continues.)

STALLONE: That's one of your biggest hits, right?

DILLER: Yes, it is. But that really won't be necessary. You know, with disco not being what it once—

STALLONE: Don't worry—I don't wanna star in it with Travolta. I'll stay behind the camera. Sound good?

(Diller stares blankly at Stallone.)

DILLER: You want to direct a sequel to Saturday Night Fever?

STALLONE: Sure! I'll write it for you too. Oh, and my brother Frank is gonna write most of the songs for the soundtrack. You said it yourself—disco's dead. But my brother's got a real gift for rock 'n' roll. You heard of Loverboy? They're terrific. Same deal with Frank. I'll make you a dub of his best stuff. Okay, see ya later!

(Stallone exits through Diller's office wall, Kool-Aid Man style.)

Here's something interesting I learned around the time of Rocky Balboa's release last December: aside from Cliffhanger, which made $84 million in the U.S. (you know I like talkin' box office!), Stallone hasn't had a substantial hit in this country outside of the Rocky and Rambo movies, but even Rocky V and Rambo III (1988) weren't hits. Films like Demolition Man, Tango & Cash, and Cobra (1986) weren't exactly flops, but they didn't draw people back to the theater after opening weekend either. Cable TV's another story, obviously.

I recently saw Stallone in Assassins (1995) for the first time. Here's a movie that had the right elements to be entertaining and successful, but it isn't. Sure, it's a pleasant waste of time on cable on a Saturday afternoon, but it could've been a lot better.

Assassins was produced by Joel Silver, who shepherded two Die Hards and four Lethal Weapons, and was directed by Richard Donner, who helmed all of those Lethal Weapons. Assassins' original script was written by Andy and Larry Wachowski four years before The Matrix made them a big deal, and the (credited) rewrite was done by Brian Helgeland, who won an Oscar in '97 for cowriting L.A. Confidential. Stallone's costars, Antonio Banderas and Julianne Moore, were up-and-coming actors in '95, but neither of them do good work in this movie. In fact, Stallone's probably the best thing about it.

Moore plays a computer genius with no common sense whatsoever; in one scene she wanders out of her hotel room in San Juan to join a Day of the Dead parade even though she knows Banderas's assassin is somewhere in the area, waiting to kill her. Now, the idea of a genius with no common sense isn't hard to buy, but here's where the movie started to get on my nerves, aside from Banderas's cartoonish performance (if he had literally chewed on the furniture, it wouldn't have seemed out of place): right before Moore spaces out and joins the parade, Stallone and she have been discussing how they're going to get his money out of a bank in San Juan without Banderas picking them off. So once Moore decides it's a lovely night to celebrate dead people and Stallone is forced to retrieve her, I started thinking, This scene only exists so that Banderas can kidnap Moore and force Stallone to alter his plan at the bank the next day ... right?

No, because Stallone catches Moore in time and they get back to the hotel before Banderas can spot them. They then carry out their plan the way they said they would the next day.

So why was that stupid scene in the movie in the first place?! Just to make Moore's character look like an idiot? Just so she could be the typical damsel in distress who has to be saved by the hero? Donner got paid $10 million to direct Assassins; I suppose he laughed all the way to the bank in San Juan that's holding his money. One other thing about Assassins—since it came out in the mid-'90s, it's a movie in which instant messaging on tiny laptop screens is used to create suspense. Remember when action movies relied heavily on MacGuffins like missing floppy disks? Assassins is that kind of movie.

Like I said, Stallone's the best thing in it, and when Rocky Balboa came out last December, there was a surge of good will behind him once the buzz got out that Rocky #6 was actually a good movie. (I still haven't seen it.) The people behind the Razzies, the awards given to the year's worst movies, even said that once they heard about Rocky Balboa going into production they fully expected they'd be giving it multiple "worst" awards come February '07. But Stallone, who wrote and directed the sixth installment (he wrote all six Rockys and directed four of them), apparently came up with a good epilogue to the series, or at least an epilogue that was good enough.

However, once Rocky Balboa came out, Stallone started talking about his plans for John Rambo, another number-free "I have a full name, dammit!" sequel title; Stallone cowrote and directed this fourth Rambo film, which is set for release next summer along with fellow sexagenarian action hero Harrison Ford's fourth Indiana Jones movie.

Stallone may have already extinguished that surge of good will from last year: we can all accept him going back to the well once, but who's demanding another Rambo so soon after another Rocky? At least the character of Rocky Balboa was (initially) a sentimental lug with a dream who was easy to root for; Rambo was a Vietnam vet who went nuts and killed a bunch of cops, which was ... you know ... a little harder to root for. Maybe John Rambo will be a thrilling movie, but that good-will lightning bolt ain't gonna strike twice.

I admire Stallone for continuing to write and direct; aside from Clint Eastwood, there aren't any other stars who direct their own action films, and Eastwood doesn't write the scripts he directs, nor is he taking on action-hero parts anymore. I'm not saying Stallone's writing great works of art (see: the arm-wrestling extravaganza Over the Top), but have fellow Best Screenplay winners Matt Damon and Ben Affleck written much since Good Will Hunting a decade ago? Not really. (Damon got a writing credit on Gus Van Sant's Gerry, but I heard the script is bare-bones, and Affleck cowrote the screenplay for his upcoming directorial debut, Gone, Baby, Gone.) Stallone stayed just as busy as them as an actor in the decade following 1976's Rocky, for which he won his Best Screenplay Oscar.

When I caught part of Rocky III on TNT back in February, I realized there was something unique about Stallone writing, directing, and starring in a big summer movie like that. I can't think of any other examples (no, Woody Allen movies don't count). For that alone, the Italian Stallion commands respect. (Warning: do not watch Rocky IV again, or your respect may immediately fly out the window.)