March of the Penguins

I'm told that, in the original French version of this nature documentary, voice actors recorded penguin dialogue, that was then lined up with the photography to create a "narrative" that tied the story together. That sounds absolutely unbearably horrible. Who wants to watch real footage of an amazing natural phenomenon with some dumb screenwriter's idea of witty avian banter in the background?

Thank goodness, sense prevailed, and the American release includes absolutely no penguin blather. Instead, America's Favorite Narrator Morgan Freeman provides the voice-over, explaining the life cycle of the Emperor Penguin of Antarctica in detail, pausing frequently to anthropomorphize the animal and draw funny little comparisons to human behavior.

March of the Penguins is undoubtedly enjoyable to watch, and the instinctual process these birds take each year in order to procreate is intensely fascinating. Conservative "family values" groups hailed the movie earlier this year as a celebration of heterosexual, child-oriented monogamy found in nature, but I don't exactly think you should start taking behavioral cues from the Animal Kingdom. Praying Mantis mothers occasionally devour their newborns whole, which is a practice I'd say belongs in the Insect World exclusively.



I've heard that the filmmakers disagree with the conservative stance, and resent Americans assigning a political value to their celebration of survival in the harsh climate of the South Pole. That's all well and good, but I must say that the Freeman narrative invites such overreaching polemics. The film frustratingly insists on constantly assigning spiritual meaning to every movement of the penguin mating cycle.

Now, as I said before, the arduous nine-month journey these noble creatures undertake annually in order to mate is awe-inspiring, and beautifully captured by Luc Jacquet. The penguins leave the sea and march 70 miles over freezing ice, with no food, to get to their breeding grounds. There, they pair up over the course of several weeks, sometimes violently as the females far outnumber the males. Once the females lay the eggs, they shift them over to the males, then venture back to the sea to find food for their newborn.

The males then huddle together for warmth over the course of two harrowing winter months. The eggs hatch, and the mothers return from the sea to feed their young. Over the next several months, the parents trade off watching the chick and venturing to the sea for sustinance, until they both leave the chicks to their own devices, and the cycle begins anew.

If the film simply chronicled the lives of these birds, any number of wonderful insights into the peculiarities of the natural world could be made. I'd just rather not have all these specious conclusions stated to me in no uncertain terms by a certain beloved character actor.

In one sequence, a mother returns from the sea to discover her chick has frozen to death. Morgan explains to us that "the loss is unbearable." But it doesn't appear to be "unbearable." In fact, Mama Penguin bears the loss with classic penguin-like stoicism. She squaks for a moment over her dead young, and then toddles off, presumably back to the sea until next year when she will try again. So where does that "unbearable" part come in? Just because it's unbearable for a human female to lose a child?

In another sequence, two females are shown fighting over the right to mate with a single male, who stands idly by until the argument is over. Freeman notes, with bemusement, that in this way, penguin males are a lot like humans. Well har-de-goddamn-har.

The sad thing is, in place of all this sentimental, "oh they're just like humans" wannabe inspirational hooey, March of the Penguins could have provided valuable scientific information. I found myself thinking of several questions during the movie that no one ever bothers to answer. For example, what percentage of penguins successfully produce a live chick each year? Based on the movie, it appears that many, if not most, of the young die after a few months, if they even make it that far. I'd like to know if that's accurate.

Also, how many Emperor Penguins are there in the world today? Are they endangered? Is their lifecycle affected by man-made environmental conditions or pollution? How did they interact with the human film crews, or did they not even seem to notice the film crews? Just how long can a penguin go without food? (Some of the males have to go several months without eating while the eggs hatch).

One final issue...During an underwater sequence, when we see penguins hunting for food and being hunted by a leopard seal, there were a few shots that didn't look quite real to me. In that, I thought there might be some animated penguins mixed in with the real footage. But I shrugged this notion off immediately...This was, after all, a nature documentary, so they wouldn't fudge footage like that without some sort of disclaimer. Well, then I get to the end credits and see several credits for computer effects specialists. Now, I can't think of what other sequence might require computer effects. There's no inserted material or designed pieces during the movie - it's all nature footage.

Does the movie include CG penguins? I'm not sure (and a quick Internet search revealed nothing definitive). If that's true, and it's unacknowledged within the film, I'd consider it a pretty serious breach of trust. If I wanted to watch fake penguins walking around, I'd just pop in Batman Returns.

I can see why so many Americans fell in love with this movie this year. It's a stirring visual experience, and a vivid portrait of the strange lives of these weird little flightless birds. Plus, despite my complaints, I did learn a lot about penguins that I didn't know before. But I could have done without all that "this is a story about love" stuff. And not because I hate romantic movies. I just hate romantic movies about budget, oblong Antarctic fowl with brains the size of an Advil.

Havoc

I respect Stephen Gaghan for his ambition. He's not a writer churning out dumb stories with broad appeal in order to cash a paycheck. One look at his resume confirms that he's a writer interested in grappling with the issues of the day, that he wants to write scripts with ideas, scripts for big, ambitious films that actually have something to say. This is a rare thing among writers, and particularly rare among successful Hollywood types.

Having said that, I'm actually not a big fan of Gaghan's work. His greatly lauded script for Traffic, probably his best work to date, was bloated and occasionally ridiculous. Rules of Engagement opened with an interesting premise for an engaging political thriller, but quickly turned into a generic, by-the-numbers courtroom drama. Abandon, the film that marked Gaghan's directorial debut, is a stupid, highly implausible thriller with a bad twist ending. And then there's Havoc, Gaghan's attempt to grapple with the issues of white teenagers enthralled with "ghetto" culture.

Like the other recent films in the "Won't Somebody Think of the Children?!?" genre, films like Bully, Kids and Thirteen, Havoc is condescending, awkward in its attempts to provoke, and has a tin ear for the way young people actually speak and relate to one another. And that's only the beginning of its problems.



Again, Gaghan starts with an ambitious concept, an attempt to deal with a conflict that unites two disparate but related worlds. In this case, our clashing communities are prosperous white teens of Pacific Palisades and thuggish "vatos" from East L.A. The film is well-structured, and Gaghan clearly takes great pains to fairly present both sides of the situation, but that doesn't excuse his many lapses in judgement and clarity.

I think his largest problem is his inability to write believable characters or plausible dialogue. Gaghan's films are well-conceived in the Big Picture - they link several subplots seamlessly, they deal with big issues on an epic scope, they are long and involved but never muddled or unclear. But they are rarely memorable because the writing itself is overblown and awkward.

Havoc suffers more from this problem than any other Gaghan-scripted film I have seen. Quite frankly, you don't believe in these characters, any of them, for one minute. The white teens in particular have far too much perspective on themselves, and tend to speak their inner thoughts and motivations out loud. Gaghan even stoops to the tired old technique of giving one of the teens a camera, which he points at the other teens while encouraging them to explain themselves and their behavior directly to the audience.

So you get a lot of shots of pretty young white girls looking into the camera and saying, "I just act out because I'm bored. No one pays attention to me, so I rebel by getting into black culture." It's a bit trite, but it might be interesting if Gaghan actually explored these ideas, but he apparently thinks just having his protagonist speak them allowed is enough to get his point across.

Honestly, casting is a pretty big problem as well. The white girl at the center of the film is played by Princess Diaries veteran and American Sweetheart Anne Hathaway, in one of those desperate "I'm grown up now, give me real work!" moves that never really turns out that well. Remember Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls? Or Christina Ricci getting totally nude in the direct-to-DVD Prozac Nation? Now you can add Anne Hathaway, getting topless and blowing guys in a low-budget unreleased film few will ever see.

The problem with this is that it's stunt casting (and that the movie becomes infamous way before release as "that movie where Anne Hathaway gets naked," making it hard to take seriously on any other level). Hathaway's not exactly a remarkable actress, but it's almost like Gaghan and director Barbara Kopple (previously known as the director of documentaries like Wild Man Blues and Harlan County, U.S.A.) cast her for the shock value rather than because she had any connection to the role.

Her cohort and best friend is played by the reigning queen of "Won't Somebody Think of the Children?!?" movies, Bijou Phillips. Honestly, how many of these movies does one girl need to star in before it shifts from typecasting and into a cry for help. Bijou's played troubled teens who become fascinated with street culture as part of an overall emotional downfall in Bully and James Toback's woeful Black and White, which also featured supporting work from boxer Mike Tyson. Bijou, willowy and oddly beautiful as she might be, has become predictable in this role.

Finally, Freddie Rodriguez as street tough Hector is horribly miscast. Rodriguez is a pretty great actor (whom you might know as Federico from the recently deceased HBO classic "Six Feet Under"), but he's no more believable as a thug wannabe rapist than Steve Guttenberg. He's just not an imposing, looming figure. If the part called for a young guy who wanted to be a thug, but just didn't have it in him, Rodriguez would pretty much be perfect, but we're supposed to be threatened by Hector's temper and displays of power. Even his accent sounds kind of fakey.

Yeah, I said attempted rapist. You see, Bijou and Anne, bored by the monotonous luxury of their isoalted Pacific Palisades lifestyle and their doofus frat-like boyfriends, cruise to East LA for a little excitement. When they flirt with a couple of hardcore gangstas, and get invited to a house party, things go awry quickly. The girls, after leading on Hector and his friends, decide they'd rather not go too far, and the situation gets ugly, although it's unclear whether a technical rape has occured. When they return to The Palisades, of course, their story grows more unpleasant and violent, and the dumb white fratboys decide to go to the barrio to settle the score.

Like I said, Gaghan goes to great pains to make it clear that both sides are to blame for this unpleasantness. The girls were condescending to these guys, treating their neighborhood and lifestyle like a theme park to be visited and then abandoned. They put themselves in a risky situation knowingly, for a thrill, and then suffered the consequences. And, of course, at the same time, these thugs should have known better than to try and take advantage of stupid drunk white girls.

And on and on and on. I'm not quite sure what ultimate notion Gaghan would have wanted us to take away from this ugly, convoluted story. Something about how we're all emotional creatures, and unable to be completely fair and unbiased when dealing with one another. Something about how white kids embrace hip hop culture and slang out of ignorance, admiring the rebellious spirit without understanding the hard reality of daily life in th einner city. Something about how the privileged live in intentionally sealed communities, cutting them off from their less wealthy, minority neighbors.

But really, Havoc isn't any of those things. At best, it's an erotic thriller, a semi-titilating chance to catch a bit of lithe female nudity while pretending to actually be following a story. If that's all you're after, Havoc is minimally exceptional. For an unrated direct-to-DVD erotic thriller that's already infamous online for featuring Anne Hathaway's first-ever nude scene, the whole production is pretty tame. There's a bit of thrusting, a few nipple slips, and an extended nude suicide scene with Bijou Phillips that manages to be not-in-the-least-bit hot, but that's about it.

Want me to save you the cost of a rental?



Bam. There you go. Don't say I never did nothing for you.

All About the New Cruelty

Congrats, America. You've finally done it. You've become a fascist police state. I was pretty sure it would happen at some point during my lifetime, but 2005? You've exceeded my every expectation.

Okay, first things first...The fascist part. Fascism is a word that's tossed around a lot on the ol' Internet. Usually, people use it to mean "something bad." Like, "Oh, I hate AP Bio with Mr. Thompson. He's such a fucking fascist." This is wrong, unless of course Mr. Thompson is centralizing power within the Teacher's Lounge and quelling any dissent via propaganda and oppression.

Accordingly, everyone kind of tunes out a political blogger or commentator online if they start throwing around F-bombs. "Bush is a fascist," "Cheney is a fascist" and so on. It's a good way to get pegged quickly as a wacky hippie with nothing sensible to say, like the time I said that Sean Hannity molests kids. Obviously, that's not 100% accurate. He does molest kids, but I'm using that term to refer to young goats, not humans. I apologize for being misleading.

This is a shame, because the Bush Administration really is a fascist organization, and the country is slowly but surely transforming from a representative democracy and into a corporate-run beurocracy where the monied elite retains power through coersion, corruption, media control, propaganda and an underground network of prisons where dissidents are arrested without being charged, held for indeterminate periods of time, tortured and even killed.

Here's the Dictionary.com definition of "fascism":

A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

Tell me how that's different from circa 2005 America.

Now, some may say that Bush isn't a dictator. It's true, he calls himself a "president" and operates under an assumption of having won an election, but there are a few problems with this veneer of legitimacy.

(1) Neither of the two elections in which Bush assumed power were fair, and both were tainted with corruption both in terms of actual electoral practices and post-election legal wrangling. I frankly still doubt that Bush beat Al Gore in 2000, and believe if the Supreme Court had not intervened, he may have lost the election outright. And I don't even have a guess as to the actual outcome in 2004, because the voting practices in Ohio, Florida and other states seem to me at this point hopelessly flawed. (Here's an enlightening article by Christopher Hitchens, hardly a cheerleader for the Democrats, discussing Ohio's inconsistant and questionable election results).

(2) With a Republican controlled Court, Senate, House and Executive Branch, the American people get exactly 1 chance every two years to change any aspect of the way their nation is governed. Other than the mid-term elections of '06, these criminals have years of total domination to look forward to, without any chance for Americans to get the hell rid of them.

(3) Because the corporations that control the government also control the American media, they have the exclusive opportunity to shift attitudes among the electorate. Representative democracy is fueled by an informed, aware populace, not a group of zombies held helplessly in the sway of a slick, expertly-tuned marketing machine that works down their resolve 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

(4) Bush and Cheney's entire ruling philosophy is based around enhancing their own power while removing it from every other governing body. They are exactly fascist in their thinking...Any opposition is treasonous, any dissent is anti-America, any attempt by any group of influence any specific policy is an infringement on the jurisdiction of the White House. Think about it...Cheney was infuriated that the Senate passed a law asking him politely to stop torturing people. He was infuriated.

Okay, so Bush/Cheney is a dictatorship, albeit one with a terrific PR wing to convince people that they're just mild-mannered public servants.

You want socio-economic controls? How about enriching their corporate partners while keeping the vast majority of Americans in crippling, cyclical poverty? Moreso, how about removing vital funds set aside for the protection of Americans and using it instead for opportunistic wars of pleasure and kickbacks for the rich and powerful?

Suppression of opposition through terror and censorship? Karl Rove has that slogan at the top of all his personal stationary. "From the Desk of Karl Rove...Supression of opposition through terror and censorship." Often, Bill O'Reilly will combine both of these concepts into the same sentence. We're talking about a country in which Billy O can call for the destruction of San Francisco by terrorists live on the radio, in which Ann Coulter can insist that we murder foreign heads of state and forcibly convert his or her citizens to Christianity, but Howard Stern has to flee to privately-owned pay radio to make doody jokes.

Just consider how the U.S. has now openly adopted torture as a foreign policy. The White House and the Wall Street Journal are basically telling the American people that torture is okay, because it one day might possibly help us try to stop another potential terrorist attack that could hypothetically strike at an unknown future date. I'd link a great New York Times article on this very issue, but it's behind that bogus Times Select firewall, and I'm not paying $4 for each of you to read it.

Finally, belligerant nationalism and racism. Um...please look around you. Okay, you've looked around? Do I still need to talk about how rah-rah Americanism has reached new and absurd heights of absurd absurdity? Here's a mp3 of a horrible pop-punk song called "Bush Was Right." Case closed. And racism? Man, GWB is all about racism. You need look no further than the defense he and his apologists use against charges of racism...He can't be racist, because he hangs out with Condoleeza Rice! They're buddies! Forget his racist policies and the fact that his mother has made openly racist comments in public or that his administration allowed thousands of black Louisiana residents to die while he praised his friend Brownie and made jokes about his wild days on the bayou. He's a friend to the Negro!

Also, his narrow-minded fundamentalist religious views, in which Christianity supercedes American values, can be considered a form of extreme prejudice, or at least unfair religious favoratism.

So, there you go. Bush/Cheney is a fascist organization. But I also referred to modern America as a police state. Surely I can't be serious...Americans still have relative freedom from inappropriate, strong-arm gestapo tactics, right? WRONG.

Miami police announced Monday they will stage random shows of force at hotels, banks and other public places to keep terrorists guessing and remind people to be vigilant.

Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats.

Haven't any of you people read 1984? Or, if you hate reading as much as most American hillbilly shitheads, haven't any of you seen Brazil? Or...sigh...Star Wars: Episode III: The Good One? Notice how the bad guys always use the threat of terrorist violence as an excuse to seize ever-greater power for themselves? You think George Lucas just made that shit up? He's clever, but he's not that goddamn clever. Orwell included it in his book because it's totally fucking true.

The Miami Police aren't really thinking they're going to stop terrorism by harassing people at banks and hotels. They just want to harass people, and this gives them a great excuse. Why do they want to harass people? Because that's their fucking job. We pay them to catch people doing shit they shouldn't be doing. So I don't really blame the police for making a stupid, crazy power grab as much as I blame everyone else for not stopping them. Of course the police want to abuse their power as much as possible. That's why they become policemen! Guys who aren't bullies and don't want to push people around for no good reason don't become cops.

I mean, holy shit, go read this whole article. It's extraordinarily frightening.

The operations will keep terrorists off guard, Fernandez said. He said al-Qaida and other terrorist groups plot attacks by putting places under surveillance and watching for flaws and patterns in security.

...

Police Chief John Timoney said there was no specific, credible threat of an imminent terror attack in Miami. But he said the city has repeatedly been mentioned in intelligence reports as a potential target.

Timoney also noted that 14 of the 19 hijackers who took part in the Sept. 11 attacks lived in South Florida at various times and that other alleged terror cells have operated in the area.

Things to notice about Fernandez and Timoney's statements:

(1) No specific information. Only a vague threat of terror activity.

(2) What percentage of the world's total terrorist population are actual members of al-Qaida? I'm guessing less than 2%. Yet in every single article where terrorism is mentioned, members of al-Qaida are cited. This organization has become a symbol used to scare people. it's an archetype, nothing more.

(3) Connecting 9/11 to something with which it has no connection. In this case, gestapo tactics in South Florida)

According to the article, the ACLU has approved the Miami Police's suggested tactics, which does kind of surprise me. They can usually be counted on to uphold civil rights laws as strenuously as possible. But I still think this is way, way over the line, and the soothing, "we don't want to take your rights away" talk of the officials in charge only convinces me further that something is rotten in the state of Florida. (Well, okay, an additional thing is rotten.) I mean, look at this quote:

"People are definitely going to notice it," Fernandez said. "We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don't want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We need them to be our eyes and ears."

We plan to shock and surprise you in public, make you present your documentation to us while we invade your personal space and privacy. We want to put you in awe of our power over you, and we want you to be aware that you are always being watched, spied upon and are a suspect in an ongoing, secretive investigation, the details of which are specious, vague and unclear. But we don't want you to feel threatened. Just go about your business like it's not even happening...

Ignorance is Knowledge. War is Peace. Bush isn't a Fascist.

The Frighteners: Director's Cut

Peter Jackson's The Frighteners was released in the summer of 1996 to an uncaring, overcrowded American box office and tanked miserably. I'd chalk much of the film's failure up to poor marketing, that made it look too much like a dopey comedy, which is sure to turn off the genre fans (read: horror and cult movie fans) to whom a film like The Frighteners normally appeals. But, bear in mind, as well, that the film contains no large, marketable stars, comes from a man who was, at that time, a thoroughly unknown commodity in The States, and boasts an R rating despite having a somewhat bawdy, juvenile sense of humor.

So, to be fair, it's a tough sell.

Over the years, Jackson has developed somewhat more brand awareness, mainly due to a small series of personal independant films you may have heard of called Lord of the Rings. So people have gone back and discovered what I knew back in the summer of 1996, when I saw this film in the movie theaters. The Frighteners is a great, silly, frenetic, dazzling, unabashedly twisted horror-comedy with terrific early CG effects, several endearing comic performances and just the right amount of bloody gore and violence.



Unlike Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, I can't say it benefits tremendously from the extended cut featured on the new DVD. While the Extended Edition Lord of the Rings films add much-needed nuance, depth, texture and detail, all the Director's Cut of The Frighteners gives you are a few throwaway gags and a couple extra effects shots. Don't get me wrong...As a longtime fan of the film, it's fun for me to see some of the stuff that didn't make the final cut.. And one shot that was cut out, featuring a ghost walking in front of a light bulb, is as trippy and interesting an image as anything in the finished film.

But this is more a treat for the fans than a truly neccessary or crucial addition of material.

That being said, the movie is every bit as technically impressive as it was upon its debut. When the film was made, in 1995, CG was still relatively new on the scene. Jackson's New Zealand effects house, WETA, hadn't even used computer effects in their previous films - cult and indie classics Dead Alive, Bad Taste, Heavenly Creatures, Meet the Feebles and others. In the introduction to the film on the new DVD, Jackson implies that his initial work with CG effects on The Frighteners inspired him to take on the even more ambitious Lord of the Rings films.

There are a few shots that date the film, effects-wise. A sequence in which a ghost pops up through a persian rug to strangle a woman looks a bit pixellated and cartoonish, and some of the movement is still too smooth to achieve anything approaching photorealism. But the overall look and texture of the film are completely solid, and many of the sequences rank among the most creative and stylish CG artist have yet completed.

And for a mid-90's film, The Frighteners sure does rely on a lot of computer effects. The story of fradulent psychic detective Frank Bannister (Fox) who teams up with a young widow (Trini Alvarado) and a trio of bumbling spirits (Jim Fyfe, Chi McBride, John Astin) to defeat an undead serial murderer (Jake Busey) and his psycho girlfriend (Dee Wallace Stone), The Frighteners only has a few characters that aren't created through CG. Spectral, iridescent ghosts populate the entire film, moving easily through objects and interacting with their live-action surroundings.

The movie really is a marvel of design. The sets are moody and atmospheric, the cinematography is playful and expressive, the violence is quick and shocking and Danny Elfman's score bounces joyfully along from kill to kill, and gag to gag.

The film's humor really worked for me back in '96, and I still think Jackson's earlier films are hilarious, but The Frighteners has a decidedly teenage boy-themed sense of humor. To be honest, I started to find it a bit grating. The ghost characters in particular are awful schticky, which not only drags down the film's first half but also makes it harder to accept them as real characters later on down the road.

The fact is, the film's goofball antics clash with the severity and intensity of its horror storyline. This is a story about a man who is haunted, both literally and figuratively, after the brutal death of his wife. It's about a serial killer on a violent rampage through a small town. I can see why Jackson would want to inject some dark humor into the movie, and Michael J. Fox does a good job of making Frank Bannister a charming, memorable character, but a lot of the comedy beats simply aren't that funny.

The only performer to really connect with the film's loopy sensibility is Jeffrey Combs, best remembered as the mad scientist from Re-Animator. Combs' character, a deeply troubled FBI agent obsessed with pinning murders on Frank, is the only one to successfully combine The Frighteners taste for the creepy and bizarre with its mordant sense of humor. He's not brought in until late in the movie, but Combs' rather brilliant turn holds the entire third act together. (R. Lee Ermey, the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket, also has a fun little cameo as, well, um, as a ghost drill sergeant).

I haven't had a chance to look at the 4+ hours of bonus material on the DVD, but I'm sure I'll dig into that stuff eventually. Much of it is taken from the infamous Frighteners Laserdisc, one of the rarest and most sought-after of all Laserdiscs, so it already has a good reputation as far as behind-the-scenes footage goes. As for the film, it demands to be seen by any fan of Jackson's style or the horror-comedy genre, and doesn't disappoint even a decade after its initial release.

Anger Mismanagement

I got angry with a customer today. Very angry. More angry than I have been with anyone in a while. So angry that I was, at one point, literally shaking with rage.

It was not without cause. I'm not the kind of person to fly off the handle. The other day, I was making a left-hand turn to get out of a parking lot on to Pico, which can take a minute or two occasionally. The person behind me was screaming and honking their horn, generally carrying on as if I were kidnapping their youngest heir rather than keeping them from getting home in time for the opening credits of "CSI: Camden." That's not me.

I think I was, in fact, too courteous under these circumstances. In the future, I will aim to be more openly hostile to customers such as these, because accepting abuse from people, even in retail situations, only encourages this behavior.

Here's the situation...A guy comes in today, I won't name him...For the purposes of this post, we'll call him by a pseudonym...Buster McDermott. Okay, so Buster comes in with a copy of Star Wars: Episode I: The One With the Pod Race and wants to return it. He says it's defective. Why? Because, when removing the "security tape" that runs over the top of the box, he accidentally tore a small bit of the box's outer plastic covering.

My first reaction was to laugh at him. I mean, this is a small thing that happens all the time when you open DVD's. You rip the plastic a bit with your fingernail while you're prying off the tape. If you were to go through my DVD collection right now, I estimate 60% would have small rips in the outer plastic boxes.

So, for starters, you'd have to be a really anal-retentive, obsessive, uptight asshole to genuinely worry about a small fracture in the external covering of the box of a new DVD. Particularly a Star Wars DVD from six freaking years ago.

But this guy wasn't just upset over having ripped his own DVD...He was angry. He stated repeatedly that this was a defect in our product. In his own words, "the glue wouldn't come off, and I had to tear it."

My first reaction was to replace the box. We have a lot (and I mean a lot) of extra plastic DVD boxes at Laser Blazer. Rooms full of them. With the random DVD boxes sitting around that store, you could constrcut a full-sized replica of every spaceship featured in Star Wars: Episode I: Those Goofy Gunguns, with enough boxes left over to make a kickass fort.

But, no. Mr. McDermott needed a brand-new box, one that comes with a brand-new copy of the movies inside. I plainly refused. This was a nonsensical request. I'm not going to just give away a brand-new copy of the DVD in exchange for an open one, an open one with a damaged cover because this overzealous nitwit can't figure out how to use an Exacto knife or the edge of a pair of scissors.

He insisted that I reconsider. I offered to take down the man's phone number, ask the store's owner whenever he arrived about the situation and get back to him. He screeched that it was entirely inappropriate for me to suggest he should have to come back.

And this is where the man went completely out of his mind. I didn't catch all the nightmarish, self-serving, insane bullshit spewing from his mouth to my ears, but here are some snippets and highlights. Whenever possible, these are verbatim quotes, but some of the wording may be somewhat paraphrased. The content, though, is 100% accurate, I promise:

• I was making a big, big, horrible mistake that I would later regret
• It was outrageous that I was even giving this customer "a hard time"
• I needed to make "an executive decision"
• This man spent $200 the last time he was in the store
• The glue wouldn't come off the box, so he had no choice but to rip the plastic
• (This was my favorite part, because it's so clearly insane and off-topic. I'd like to remind you that I have witnesses, and this was all stuff the man actually said). The packaging counts as part of the product, because if they didn't care about the packaging, DVD's would be sold in plain brown envelopes. So because the packaging is ripped, the product is defective, and he should be able to return it
• I was refusing to listen
• I was being unreasonable
• He went out of his way to come to our store

During this long, intensely juvenile and loud tirade, I tried to interject a number of salient points. I noted that, if I replaced the box with another, perfect box specimen, he would get everything he wanted without our store having to throw away $20. I explained that, as a small, privately owned store, we can't really afford to take a bath on all these movies, and that we wouldn't get an automatic refund for the film as the man seemed to assume. I observed that the box rip was his own fault and that it was not our responsibility to repair or correct damage done to our products after they are sold. I requested repeatedly that the man stop shouting at me and making a scene.

It was all to no avail. So, after 10 minutes or so of this nonsense, I caved. I gave the man what he wanted so he'd go the hell away. I told him as much to his face. I added that he was being abusive, that he was taking unfair advantage of a small business, and that I personally found him to be a rather odious individual. On his way out, still in mid-tantrum, he said the following:

Now both of us are in a bad mood. I'm sorry about that.

Then he left.

What an odd thing to say. He's like The Lorax, leaving my life with a cryptic little message I have to spend the next several decades trying to decipher. (I'm aware that, in my analogy, Buster would be the "hero" and I would be the greedy capitalist, but fuck that...It's just a book/cartoon.)

Here's my interpretation: He was in a bad mood about the plastic rip-DVD situation, a surefire red flag for mental instability. If I had just done exactly as he asked in the first place, he would still be in a bad mood, but I would have been spared his fiery, but righteous, wrath. Unfortunately, I didn't do exactly as he wanted, so he had no choice but to put me in a bad mood.

This was, I'd like to repeat for the record, a grown man. I can't even think of the ways in which this violates the social code. You just don't, I repeat, you don't treat people in this manner, even if you are a customer somewhere and they are an employee. I have no idea why people think that manners and proper conduct don't have any hold in retail situations, but they do, and even if you feel someone is cheating you blindly out of a copy of Star Wars: Episode I: Why Not Just Skip to Episode III, you still don't have the right to yell at them and make a scene like a toddler.

So, I'm left with only one question...What to do about it? I'm relatively sure, without relying on the Laser Blazer database, whose security and safety from prying eyes is sacrosanct, I could find a phone number or address for Buster McDermott. I do, after all, know his full name (it's not really Buster McDermott, which is just my favorite all-purpose fictional name), even if I won't reveal such secrets to you good people on the Intar-Web.

Here's my first thought...Take a dump in a box and mail it to him. This was done on "Six Feet Under" two seasons ago by a disgruntled, abandoned son, and I have since wanted to try it for real. Imagine how beautiful a scene that would be...Your sworn enemy receives a nicely-wrapped gift box in the mail, opens it excitedly and discovers...a human turd. Beyond even the smell issue, there's always the issues of disposal. It's not exactly the kind of thing you just dump in the kitchen trash bag.

That plan does regrettably require that I take a dump in a box, and then wrap it, and activity that's nearly as unpleasant for me as it is for Buster. Also, I'd have to find some way to prevent the box from smelling too bad or getting too...um...okay this is gross. But I wouldn't want the poo bomb to be discovered prior to delivery. And it's not like I could just leave it on Buster's doorstep, ring the doorbell and run off, because he probably lives in a nice neighborhood and some neighborhood watch weirdo might see me.

And nothing in the world would be more embarrassing than being caught leaving a box full of your own feces on someone's front step. I mean, that's just strange.

So, okay, next plan. I could ring up a ton of porn under his name at the video store, and then mail all the receipts to his house and place of business. Concoct $1000, $2000 bills in overdue porn rentals and demand remittance every, oh, week or so for a few months. Sure, he could eventually prove to his loved ones and colleagues that he didn't really buy or rent all that porn, but I'd say the humiliation of the situation in the first place would pretty much make up for my anger and frustration this afternoon.

That would require me to break quite a number of video store regulations. In fact, this very article, by mere virtue of its existance, might be in violation of some video store regulations. Let me state for the record that this post is satirical, and that I really wouldn't use the Laser Blazer computer system to exact revenge on an individual over some petty argument.

So I guess it's back to poop in a box. Maybe dry ice could help preserve the unpleasantness while surpressing the smell for transport...

Walk the Line

In this article over at Ain't It Cool News, Walk the Line reviewer Capone says the following:

It’s almost impossible to fathom that just a little over a year after arguably the finest biopic made about a musician, Ray, was released that another film comes along about an equally influential player that might actually be better.

Okay, so we have very different actual opinions about the film Ray. Capone finds it to be possibly the best biographical film about a musician ever made, whereas I found it to be an almost completely intolerable, ludicrous, maudlin, predictable and souless mess. The review is scathing even by Crushed by Inertia standards, and can be read here.

But Capone is correct to compare the two films. They share a ton in common. Both are biographies focused on the rise to stardom of two icons of 20th Century American music - Ray Charles in Ray and Johnny Cash in Walk the Line. And beyond that similarity in theme, they both share a focus on the women behind-the-scenes who so influenced these men personally and creatively, and both find opportunity to include numerous classic songs by these timeless artists. Even some of the specific details of Charles' and Cash's lives overlap. Both lost brothers traumatically at a young age, and felt guilty for years afterwards. Both had absent fathers (though Charles' was actually physically absent while Cash's was just drunk, hostile and emotionally vacant). Both men battled drug addiction. And, of course, they both rose to fame and glory amidst the backdrop of classic 50's and 60's pop music.

So, considering that they share so much in common, and further considering that both Taylor Hackford's bio of Ray Charles and James Mangold's bio of Cash hew close to the classic biopic formula, how come Walk the Line is so much better than Ray? And I don't mean the movies are alike, and this one happens to be better. It's not even remotely close. Walk the Line feels as alive, vibrant, human, emotional and entertaining as Ray felt turgid and wan. It really comes down to talent, I suppose. Writers and directors can sit down with the same material and wind up with a wildly divergent final product.



Don't get me wrong...Walk the Line is hardly perfect. Mangold's film is undoubtedly built around a familiar musical biopic formula, and there are a number of scenes that feel obvious, derivative and overly cutesy. One scene in particular, in which June Carter yells at a drunken Cash that "you can't walk no line," caused me to roll my eyes clear into the back of my head. I always hate it when movies have a blatant line that references the title of a movie like that. There's a scene in one of those Star Trek Next Generation movies where they go back in time and crash-land on an Earth where proto-astronaut James Cromwell is about to introduce Earth into the galactic Federation. Anyway, he gets one look at Picard and the crew and he says..."You're all astronauts...on some kind of...Star Trek!" LAME.

Walk the Line definitely has some scenes like that, moments that just play rushed or kind of false and artificial that have to be in the movie because they're in every movie like this.

But by focusing his story on the ups and downs of one relationship in Cash's life, Mangold avoids the usual Biopic Syndrome, in which the movie feels like a clip show highlighing the best moments in the life of a celebrity. Like Milos Forman's Andy Kaufman bio, Man on the Moon. It's less like watching a movie about Andy Kaufman the Man, and more like watching a 90 minute film in which Jim Carrey recreates Kaufman's best bits. I don't really care to see Jim Carrey doing Tony Clifton. I wanted to see him inhabiting Andy Kaufman.

Walk the Line feels more like a real movie, with a cinematic story to tell. As Cash, Joaquin Phoenix gives arguably his best performance to date. He doesn't really look like Cash (he's pretty scrawny, whereas the real Cash was a more imposing presence). And though he ably sings all the songs in the movie, he doesn't really sound like Johnny Cash. That's not a knock...few do. He sounds like Johnny Cash with a bad head cold after smoking three packs of Malboros in a room with the air conditioning turned way up. But damned if he doesn't capture the spirit of Cash, or at least the spirit of this film's version of Cash.

In his best moments, he conjures a mixture of childlike innocence, snarky wit and wounded pride with a single look or gesture. His "druggie" scenes aren't over-the-top or forced. Unlike other actors who try to go big with these moments, gunning for showy Oscar-clip material, Phoenix realizes that many drunks and addicts turn inward, get real quiet and try to disappear into themselves.

And he plays off Witherspoon's June Carter marvelously. (She also sings all her own songs, and shows off her significant vocal abilities...I'm guessing she may find some work in one of these big garish unneccessary studio musicals if the Legally Blonde trilogy plans don't pan out). I like how Witherspoon sees Carter's folksy stage presence as an extension of her off-stage personality. And both actors just look natural on stage, inhabiting these two famous entertainers. You're always aware that it's Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix, and not June Carter and Johnny Cash, but what the hell? It's a movie, right?

These two characters and their tumultuous path to love sit at the focal center of the film, but Mangold gives us glimpses of the world of 50's pop and country music as well. In the film's most buoyant, entertaining and fleet section, we follow a tour featuring Sun artists including Cash and Carter, and also Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley. In another segment, Cash violently argues with his first wife Viv (Ginnifer Goodwin) while Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" blares in the background, echoing not only Cash's devotion to the folk singer but his tendency to cover "It Ain't Me, Babe" with Carter on stage.

That's just one of the memorable musical sequences, well-shot by Mangold, who uses a lot of close-ups to effectively cover Phoenix's amateurish guitar playing and to generally make him look more like Johnny Cash. The film opens with Cash preparing to take the stage at Folsom Prison, recording the live album that would become one of the high points of his career. The Folsom performance is exceptionally recreated. It's striking, insightful, funny, intense. And, of course, as you'd expect, the music is outstanding.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

It's impossible to talk about Mr. and Mrs. Smith without discussing one's feelings on Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. They are the entire movie. No attempt has been made to provide any level of entertainment or creativity beyond the casting of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, and the occasional dressing of the duo in sleepwear.

So, before we go any further, allow me to state the following for the record: I like Brad Pitt in certain films; he's not a terrible performer in the right role, and he tends to work with directors I find at least vaguely interesting (like Terry Gilliam or David Fincher or Steven Soderbergh). I think Angelina Jolie's a pretty terrible actress who also happens to be incredibly, stunningly attractive.



Brad looks befuddled. I, too, am befuddled by the vapid mess that is Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The ingredients are all there for, if not a good movie, at least a passably entertaining popcorn movie. Director Doug Liman helmed Swingers and the surprisingly watchable The Bourne Identity. Pitt and Jolie are beautiful people, dressed scantily and firing weapons at one another. As an added bonus, they got together in real life while making this movie. I don't know if you heard about that, but it was briefly in the newspapers this year.

And the premise is as promising as it is unoriginal:

A couple discovers after six years of marriage that they are both professional assassins, and that they are now tasked with killing one another.

That's what they call, in The Industry, a high-concept premise. It sounds like a mix between True Lies and The War of the Roses, and that's exactly what it is.

It's so high-concept, in fact, such a straightforward formula action-comedy set-up, that screenwriter Simon Kinberg didn't bother to actually write much of anything. Mr. and Mrs. Smith hits all of the beats you'd expect, it sets up scenarios and jokes and pays them off, but it's staggeringly stilted and dull. Honestly, despite starring the face that launched 1,000 copies of Vogue Magazine, the thing isn't even that sexy. One can only hope these two are hotter in real life than they are on screen in this shitkicker. Maybe they just have a mutual interest in starving orphans...

I will admit, to be fair, that the thing does pick up after a sluggish initial opening act. Liman has a fairly steady eye for action sequences, and he mercifully avoids that quick-cut blurry Ridley Scott crap that's ruining the Hollywood action film. Even though this thing ends in a bloated, explosives-heavy sequence that can be accurately described as "Bruckheimer-esque," Mr. and Mrs. Smith definitely works better as an action film than a comedy.

Occasionally, Vince Vaughn pops up as Pitt's co-assassin partner, and actually says a couple of funny lines. But otherwise, the movie just doesn't connect. I think the main characters, John and Jane Smith (Pitt and Jolie) are the main problem. Okay, fine, they are assassins. They are cold and cruel and nihilistic. That's one thing. But on top of that, they don't even care about each other until the very end of the film. Their marriage has grown stale at the opening, they're bored with one another, and so, of course, so are we. Even once the reveal has been made - they're professional killers! - their personalities don't get any more interesting.

They just don't care about anything but murder. That they eventually stop trying to kill one another and focus their bloodlust outward doesn't really make this problem any better.

Stuff About Stuffing

I went home to Irvine today, as I always do on Thanksgiving. By the time I get home, items are already being shoved into and pulled out of the oven, snacks have already been prepared, and my father is openly questioning how long he has to wait before commencing with cocktail hour. (Final verdict? 4 p.m.)

My mother refers to the hosting of the Thanksgiving meal as "entertaining," as if the neighbors, the police chief and my dad's old army buddy are dropping by at any time. In fact, it will be a tightly-knit group this year, consisting of my parents, myself, my brother Jon, his girlfriend Paula, my grandparents Sally and Bill, and my uncle's girlfriend's son, Kyle.

We spend the majority of the night watching and discussing "Curb Your Enthusiasm." I don't know if any of you saw this week's "Curb," in which Larry must pretend to be an Orthodox Jew in order to convince the head of the Kidney Consortium to move his friend Richard Lewis up the donor list. It was a hilarious episode that thankfully was this evening at 6, giving us all a chance to watch.

Also, it's my birthday on Saturday, so we did the family version of the birthday celebration. I got a cool book from my brother on the history of scientific inquiry into the origin of life on Earth. Other than that, I got money. Some of the money was earmarked for me to sign up for Sirius Satellite Radio, so I can hear Howard Stern's broadcasts starting January 9th.

A few observations:

• Money is the ultimate birthday gift. You can't return it. It's easy to wrap. And it's not something you'll never use and then feel guiltty about never using, because someone took the time to pick it out and buy it for you.
• The new $50 bill, with the off-purple trim, is realy gay. Gayer than European money, even.
• Every time my family members give me money on a special occasion, they make a big thing about putting it in my wallet immediately rather than my pocket. I keep valuables in my pocket all the time. In fact, my wallet itself is just going into a pocket anyway. So what's the big deal?

After a delicious turkey dinner, replete with two kinds of sweet potatoes, my grandfather's trademark savory stuffing and homemade pumpkin pie, I said my goodbyes, packed up my leftovers and headed out to Cypress.

My friends Dave and Matt are in town for the holiday from Santa Cruz and Brooklyn, respectively, so I wanted to swing by their house for a visit. To get there, you exit the 405 at Seal Beach Boulevard and turn right. Unfortunately, Dave tells me on the phone to turn left. I pass Leisure World, the old-folks community, which I have never passed before to my knowledge. This was my first clue that something was wrong.

My second clue came when I entered a strange residential neighborhood I'd never been to before, and all signs of Seal Beach Boulevard disappeared into the foggy night. I was lost. And not that, "Oh dang I'm lost" kind of lost, where you know as soon as you make one crucial turn you'll be back on a familiar straightaway. The kind of lost where you just know, without some outside assistance, you will be driving around in circles for the next two sessions of Congress. I'd have had an easier time finding the Well of Souls than the way back towards Dave's house.

I swallow my pride and call for help, and Dave over the phone gets me back on track. Only after driving for a few moments do I realize just how far off the proper route I had gone. I was practically back in Irvine, for crissakes. I really need one of them GPS systems, preferably one that sounds like Mr. T.

I finally arrive at Dave and Matt's just as everyone is getting ready to leave for a bar. Apparently, near Cal State Long Beach, a number of dive-y kind of bars remain open on Thanksgiving. So we head out to a place called, I believe, 3636, with a number of Dave and Matt's high school friends in tow.

The first thing I notice about 3636 is its horrible jukebox. The thing claims to be connected live to the Internet, and able to download songs upon request. The only problem is, most good songs from any listed artist aren't available on the jukebox at all, and the ones that are available cost $2. It's the first jukebox I've ever used that actively begged for money once you're trying to select songs.

SELECT ARTIST:

Neil Young

SELECT SONG -> OPTIONS: "CINAMMON GIRL" or "ARE YOU PASSIONATE" or "LOOK UP OTHER SONGS"

Look up other songs

PLEASE INSERT $3

What?

PLEASE INSERT $3

Okay, I guess...

[Lons inserts $3]

SELECT ARTIST

Neil Young

SELECT SONG -> OPTION: "CINAMMON GIRL"

Download: "Cowgirl in the Sand"

PLEASE INSERT $400,000 AND WAIT 2 HOURS

It went on and on like that.

The second thing I noticed about 3636...There's nowhere to stand without blocking the people playing pool. There are these two pool tables, but they back up right into the only area available for standing around drinking beer, kind of a crucial area in a crowded dive bar. So every time someone wants to hit the cue ball from that side of the room, everyone has to shift around where they're standing to accomodate. It becomes like a tavern-sized game of Musical Chairs, almost like that orgy scene from Eyes Wide Shut but without the costumes or sex.

That was about all I noticed about 3636, because I became involved with the jukebox, as well as drinking and a pinball game based on "The Sopranos." Not neccessarily in that order. Dave's girlfriend Sandra and I, after giving up on finding quality music on the jukebox, tried to get into a game of pool, but wound up at the tail end of a long line that included a lot of colorful local types. So, after a lot of shifting my wait to avoid fast-moving pool cues, I made my way back to the Lau's house and then home.

During my drive home, an incredibly thick fog settled into the Greater Los Angeles Area. I don't know that I've ever seen fog this heavy in all my years living in LA. Visibility was singificantly low on the 405, and the effect was only worsened by the lack of other cars and the lack of excess light coming from the darkened buildings along the road. (It was, after all, Thanksgiving Eve, and everyone was presumably home sleeping off their tryptophan.)

At around Torrance, I half debated pulling my car to the shoulder and waiting for the fog to clear. It genuinely seemed unsafe to drive in those conditions. But it was late, and I was tired, and I have leftover stuffing in the trunk of my car defrosting by the moment, so I simply forged ahead. By Culver City, the fog lifted and I was able to see again. But it was precarious there for a moment...I nearly didn't survive to see my actual birthday (which, did I mention, is this upcoming Saturday)?

Gratuitous Annual Thanksgiving Post

Some guy came in the video store the other day, and as he was leaving with his rentals, he said, "Have a happy Turkey Holocaust Day, you guys." We get morons like that in there all the damn time. It's getting to the point where I don't go 30 minutes without hearing some sort of dumbassery. Also, no one knows the alphabet. You just assume everyone knows the alphabet, but then you work at a store that requires knowledge of standard letter sequence, and you realize that this thing we call "literacy" is not so much a concrete idea as a vague categorization.

I don't really buy into the whole "it's wrong to eat turkey" idea. Or "it's wrong to eat animals." Or, "it's wrong to eat animals all the time, particularly if they have been fried and slathered in some kind of tomato-based sauce and coated with cheese made from their own vital bodily juices." I don't believe in God, but if I did believe in God, the fact that there are all these animals around that are dumber than we are, and that their flesh when cooked is delicious and provides essential proteins and nutrients, that would be pretty sound evidence to back up my case. I mean, there has to be some kind of Intelligent Designer, right? Bacon is goddamn delicious.

The folks at PETA, particularly pseudo-celebrity spokesperson Moby, respectfully disagree. They think that, and I quote, "there is no proper way to kill and cook these birds."

Really? No proper way? None at all? I mean, if I allow a turkey to live a long, healthy, contented turkey life of about 4 or 5 years, then painlessly kill it with a rifle from afar, and then serve it to my family, you're telling me that's not a proper way to kill that bird? It's a fucking bird! It doesn't know it's going to die. You know small a bird's brain is? It's so small, we actually use the concept as a term to describe being really stupid!

I agree that the conditions in which many animals live are fairly appalling. I've seen footage of slaughter-houses that has, in fact, made me briefly consider giving up meat, before ordering a double pepperoni and sausage pizza with a side of bacon cheddar potato wedges an hour later. Hey, I'm sorry. I like animals, they're cute and all, but they are incredibly tasty, and many of them go great with beer.

I will say that I am conflicted about the idea. I mean, anyone who has owned a dog will tell you that an animal doesn't need to be smart to deserve a happy life. I mean, dogs are stupid. Really stupid. But incredibly lovable. And, whatever it is that we consider to be a person's "soul," well, dogs have those too. There's life behind their eyes, they have personalities, they have memories, they feel pain...I mean, it's an animal, but you wouldn't squish it like a disgusting bug that you happened to find in your kitchen, in the exact spot you like to prepare your grilled cheese sandwiches.

Fortunately, this is not Southwest America not Southeast Asia, so in all likelihood I'll never be called on to actually squish and then consume a dog. (Sorry...cheap shot...) But pigs and cows aren't really all that different. Chickens and turkeys and ducks and, if you're a snooty blueblood New Englander or British aristocracy, quails and pheasants, I think, ought to be a gimme. Come on! Look at a chicken! It's a fucking ignoramus! You don't feel bad about eating string beans, and they have about as much personality and sense of self as a duck. Except Daffy and Donald Duck and, to a lesser extent, Huey Dewey and Louie. And Uncle Scrooge in those old Carl Banks comics.

Did you know there was once a chicken named Mike the Headless Wonder Chicken who, starting in 1945, lived for 18 months without a head? That's the kind of animal I think everyone should be able to eat guilt-free.

Vegans like quasi-celebrity Moby won't even eat fish. I mean...Please. Broccolli, fish, same shit as far as I'm concerned. Technically alive, but about as responsible to external stimuli as Hef's penis during a Viagra shortage. (Ewww...Did I really just make a Viagra joke? I think I'm gonna shut down the whole blog for a while. I've clearly run entirely out of steam.)

....

Seriously

....

A viagra joke. I swore when I started this blog that I would never make a Viagra joke.

......

Okay, this post has derailed. I'm gonna just put an end to it. Suffice it to say, I can go either way on the whole animal rights issue. I'm glad PETA is out there throwing shit at Anna Wintour. Because, let's face it, someone has to. Can we get a shot of that?



Yeah, that's the good stuff. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

The Polar Express

Unfortunately, because of the ongoing American War on Christmas, popularized in print and television by several noted Fox News assholes, the animated film Polar Express has been banned from any public screenings. This is sad because...

Wait, what? Polar Express is readily available on DVD, and will be returning to theaters this Christmas Season for a theatrical run in IMAX 3-D? But, if that were the case, it would indicate that...there isn't really a War on Christmas at all! In fact, it would indicate the exact opposite, that Christmas is openly being celebrated this year just like any other! Well, I'll never trust Fox News again!

Anyway, rather than returning The Polar Express to movie theaters where there's a chance some poor unsuspecting fool will accidentally watch it, Warner Brothers really ought to do the fair, public-minded thing and destroy the original negative and any other survivng prints. Because this isn't just an unpleasant, shrill, mindless distraction for young children. This is some sort of bizarre, unholy abomination. I know the film says it was directed by Robert Zemeckis, but just think about this...If Satan had actually directed a film, do you think he'd indicate this on the packaging? "Directed by Satan, Lord of the Underworld." Of course not. He's the goddamn King of Lies! He'd put a beloved, respected name on there, a name that was sure to secure some viewers for his mad carnival of horrors.

A name like...80's phenom Robert Zemeckis, director of beloved American classics like Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Curse your bottomless ingenuity, Lucifer!



Polar Express was created via a process called Motion Capture. This was the same technique used to animate Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films. The difference is, of course, that Gollum was just one character within a live-action film, whereas Polar Express is an animated film. So, the backgrounds are computer-generated, and live actors actually gave performances, which were then inserted into a computer and animated digitally.

The resulting effect is strange. It's clearly "not ready from prime time," in that it looks oddly artificial. The word "uncanny" gets misused all the time, so I'm loathe to ever include it in a post, but Polar Express is "uncanny" in the proper sense. The movements of the characters, in particular, are more life-like than in, say, a PIXAR film, in which the characters have the exaggerated movements of a cartoon. But the eyes...the faces...these characters, quite simply, have no souls.

Even a film like Shrek, which isn't cutting edge in 2005, manages to give its animated characters a semblance of a life, and to give their face personality. Everyone in Polar Express looks like a robot. It's fucking freaky. They have these faraway, dead eyes. Like The Night of the Living Dead Before Christmas.

So the whole film has this cold, distant tone to it. You never for a minute give yourself over to the story, or get sucked in by any sort of drama, because you can't stop looking at these eerie zombies on screen. Oh, and also because there is no drama to get sucked into. Polar Express is based on a 10 page children's book, and the book still has more depth.

Here's the story. A young boy (referred to in the credits as Hero Boy, which sounds like a good name for the First Retarded Superhero, which is easily a better idea for a movie) doesn't believe in Santa. He then gets invited on to a weird train to the North Pole, where he meets Santa. So he now believes in him. Then he takes the train home.

Oh, and they serve hot chocolate along the way. And there's a creepy bum. And everyone (everyone!) sounds like Tom Hanks.

In addition to playing The Conductor, the old guy who invites the boy on the train in the first place, Hanks plays Santa, the bum and the narrator. And considering that the narrator is telling the story of what happened to himself as a little boy, that means it's a story about a guy who invites himself on a train to the North Pole, so he can see a grim vision of himself as a bum and then meet a vision of himself dressed as Santa Claus. Christmas was never so creepy or Freudian.

I haven't even mentioned any of the worst shit about Polar Express. Here are some of the film's weakest spots, in convenient bullet form:

• Ghastly songs, many of which repeat the same few phrases over and over and over again. The first big number, called "Hot Chocolate," contains exactly one phrase - "hot chocolate" - and filled me with the urge to repeatedly give Tom Hanks second-degree burns by breaking a vat of boiling cocoa over his head. Did I mention that the film's closing-credit song is called "Believe" and is sung by Josh Groban? This is music to slit your wrists on Christmas Eve to.
• Animated Tom Hanks, dressed as a train conductor, doing a Bob Fosse dance atop a caterer's cart.
• The weird "romance" scene between the two children on the train. Bobby Z...inappropriate.
• The fetishized "elf dance" that precedes Santa's appearance. Are these elves or fucking fascists? What is Robert Zemeckis trying to say by showing these slavishly worshipful elves groveling at the feet of Tom Hanks dressed as Santa Claus? Is Santa some sort of cult leader? Does he demand this kind of supplication from his underlings? What are the penalties if an elf chooses not to participate? And finally, what's the purpose of hiring a Conductor to ship children to the North Pole in order to watch the glorification of Santa in some sort of strange photo-op? Indoctrination? Fear-mongering? Or just propaganda?
• Why are there only American children on the train? Does Santa secretly hate foreigners?
• The film's horrible, horrible message. Like many Christmas films, the movie's theme boils down to "you have to have faith in order to find the Christmas Spirit." Okay, fine, whatever...It's all puppy dogs and ice cream this time of the year, I can accept that. But unlike most Christmas films, Polar Express actively opposes curiosity and reasoning. It's the most ignorant children's movie that I have seen in a long time. In the opening scene, Hero Boy looks up "The North Pole" in the encyclopedia and discovers that the definition - a harsh, cold, desolate environment - conflicts with the mythology of Santa Claus. He reasons, then, that Santa Claus must not be real, and goes on a journey of discovery to find that Santa is real after all. Why go to such pains to discourage kids from reading and looking up information? Can't you lie to kids about Santa without slandering encyclopedias? Does it really have to be this choice between rational thought and getting presents? Really? Is that responsible, Robert Zemeckis? "It's good to be smart, but don't be too smart, or you won't get what you want for Christmas! Santa demands not just your devotion, but your blind, slack, mindless devotion, you little fucking bastard!"

Okay, so I added that last part, but still...I hate kid's movies that go out of their way to poison kids against rationality and intellectual honesty. Faith, imagination, those are important things, for sure. I'm not saying kids movies should be like "The Fountainhead" or anything, preparing them for the grim realities of life. That's what grown-up movies are for. But I do think that the message of a movie should try to avoid "hey kids, don't read books, you won't learn nothing." We've got enough ignorant assholes around here as it is, without creating another generation of them.

Just look at that...thing. The effect is not exactly what you'd call warm and inviting. Max Headroom had more human features. In fact, it looks kind of like Max Headroom, if you put a conductor's hat on him and gave him a cop moustache. Why the hell you'd do that, I don't know. But I also don't know why the hell Robert Zemeckis wants to muck about with this imperfect, half-developed animation process when all his best movies were made with regular old outdated celluloid film. So what the hell do I know?

Crushed by Inertia: Year One

It's my blogiversary. Yes, hard to believe, but true...My very first post appeared here on Crushed by Inertia one year ago today, November 21st 2004. Here's what I had to say.

Awwww...wasn't I adorable back then? Just an innocent, wide-eyed 25 year old unemployed guy from Palms. So much has changed...I'm 26 now. I work at a video store. Um...Okay, nothing else has changed. But still, it's been quite a year. I thought I'd walk you through some of my favorite moments and highlights from the first year of CBI, because I'm egomaniacal and self-aggrandizing like that.

Republican Scumbags

One thing that has remained constant here on the blog has been my distaste for the Iraq War, Fox News Channel, Republican Party in general, and President Chimpface McGee in particular.

Here was my very first political rant. Looking back, I must say, it's fairly prescient. Here's one thing I had to say at the time:

All I can do is hope he does such a foul job, without totally ruining America, that the people Bill O'Reilly so charmingly refers to as "the folks," see the folly of their ways and vote for whomever my side puts up in '08.

I was being sarcastic, but in a weird, twisted way, I got my wish. (All except for the "without totally ruining America" part). Not in my most outlandish dreams did I imagine the actual harm Bush would do to the American way of life one year ago. Hurricane Katrina alone far exceeded my expectations in terms of beurocratic ineptitude, institutional racism and callous disregard for American lives. (By the way, here's a post from the blog's second week about seeing Michael Moore speaking with John Dean at the Wadsworth Theater in Westwood).

This isn't really one of those blogs that's active in making the news. I'm far too lazy for any actual research or analysis. I see this blog as more a record of my anger and frustration with the way things in America operate. And no one frustrates me more than Billy "Falafel" O'Reilly. He's been a constant point of discussion.

Here's my reaction to his on-air fantasy about LA Times reporter Michael Kinsley being stabbed to death. Here's Bill comparing the immigration of his Irish ancestors to America with the African slave trade. Here's a post I've always liked that wonders how Billy O gets his bullshit ideas out to the average American so quickly and successfully. Here's a recent post in which I mock Bill's apparent ability to read the minds of historical figures. And, finally, here's a nice little post summarizing O'Reilly's yearly "They're Killing Christmas" bullshit.

O'Reilly's dumbass fellow Fox anchor John Gibson has even written a book on this secular "war on Christmas" nonsense. For a while, the blog featured a regular column on Gibson and the retarded things he frequently puts under his own name, in print and on the airwaves. But I would get so fired up and angry over his blatant lack of logic or reason or critical thinking skills, I had to stop writing about him. Here's Part One of the John Gibson Idiocy Watch, and here's Part Two.

Finally, while we're on the subject of Republican scumbags, I'd be remiss not to mention the sitting Scumbag-in-Chief of the U.S. Senate, Senator "Little" Ricky Santorum. Ricky was, of course, the winner of the 1st Annual Braffy Award, presented to the Worst Person Alive. (Look for this year's nominations to get going in March...I've been taking diligent notes all year, and am confident we're going to have an excellent 2006 Braffy Season).

Here is the original post nominating Santorum, the official nominations post and of course, the post in which I blogged live from the actual awards event. Finally, here's the nomination of Antonio Esfandiari, a horrible horrible man in his own right, whose idiotic column kick-started the entire Braffy Award phenomenon.

Teh R0x0rs

I haven't done nearly as many posts about music as I had initially imagined I would. I find it kind of hard to write about music on a regular basis. I just don't know enough about how music is made, and the theory behind it, to speak about it intelligently. Most of my observatiosn wind up sounding astoundingly similar. Like, "I like the drums" or "it's catchy" or "it's upbeat" or "I'd rather listen to a bone saw rip through a small child's rib cage for 12 hours on end than a single song by Sum 41."

But there have been a few notable indie rock-themed posts here on the ol' blizzog. This little piece about some great songs dealing with life in Los Angeles still ranks among my most frequently-viewed posts. Another popular post was my live-blog while watching this year's MTV Video Music Awards. Also, here I catalogued my Favorite Albums of 2004.

As for live concert reviews, I don't see as many shows as I once did, mainly out of pecuniary concerns. Here's my list of the Best Concerts I Saw in 2004. Here's my long-winded review of KROQ's Inland Invasion concert from this past summer, generously linked by the very funny and perceptive music critic Tony Pierce. Arguably the best show I've seen since starting this blog was The Decemberists at the Henry Fonda Music Box Theater in Hollywood.

Photo Shop

I don't have Photoshop on my computer, and I'm not really very good at it anyway. So I have to rely on real-life amusing pictures to give the blog any kind of multimedia effect. Fortunately, our president does a lot of goofy shit, so it's really not all that challenging. Here are a few of my favorite images from the past year:



Something about that photo just makes me laugh. Bill + Nuns = Funny!



They've changed the name of this upcoming film from Snakes on a Plane to the much more boring Flight 121. That stupid title is all the thing really had going for it, if you ask me.



That's Sacha Cohen as Kazakh reporter Borat, interrupting Pamela Anderson's pet wedding. You are good!



Everybody seemed to like this map of America, Post Election 2004. I'd like to reiterate that I had nothing to do whatsoever with its creation. I just post the shit, I don't MS Paint it together, people.



Oh, man, I seriously hate the Braffster. Seriously. A lot. So much so, that I even write anti-Braff articles for other websites.



I love this photo of "Office" star Ricky Gervais from the 80's. He looks so different, and yet so similar. It's kind of amazing.

The next two photos are responsible for an egregious amount of my blog traffic. They must pop up early on Google Image Search or something. One is late, great comic Mitch Hedberg and the other is an animated representation of Anakin Skywalker. (See if you can tell which is which!)





But more than any other subject, this blog has featured silly photos of our President making a fool of himself, his third favorite activity, after starting land wars in Asia and brush-clearing. This is the very first photo ever posted on Crushed by Inertia:



And, just to round things out, here's Bush looking like an idiot from just this past week's whirlwind tour of Asian Outbeak Steakhouses:



But That's My Life!

My Uncle always says that his favorite blog posts deal with my personal life. I'm not certain that's true for everyone. It's certainly not true for me, personally. Maybe my life sounds interesting or amusing from afar, but up close, I've got to say, it feels kind of monotonous and vaguely unsatisfying.

I've written a lot about my various dental problems over the last year, mainly caused by my addiction to caffeinated sodas. Apparently, this is worse for your teeth than holding a tuning fork against them mid-vibrate.

Other favorite subjects have included cleaning up my apartment, daily life here in Palms, some of the odd customers who come into the video store (like the infamous Porn Man, a local crazy man named Dunning and the Rudest Lady I Have Ever Met Personally), car trouble, even more car trouble, running out of gas on La Brea Boulevard, brief brushes with celebrity and placing my wallet in a washing machine. I even related, for some bizarre reason, the embarrassing tale of how I got totally drunk at an office Christmas party and tried to drive my own drunken ass home.

At the Movies

You can already check out almost all the movie articles I've written on the sidebar over there. All the reviews, my list of Favorite Directors and so on.

In fact, the single post that has brought the most eyeballs to Crushed by Inertia deals with movies. It's my Top 70 Profane, Rude or Inappropriate Movie Quotes. Thanks to mega-site Gorilla Mask picking up the article, over 10,000 people came to check out the blog in less than a week. That's about 1/6th of the total blog traffic for the entire first year! As you can see, the post has a ridiculous 91 comments. It's strange to think about, but more people have read that single blog post than anything I have written since my UCLA Daily Bruin movie reviews (and even those didn't have that much more readership.)

I also like this post about Laserdisc films that aren't available on DVD, my reconsiderations of the two Star Wars prequels (here and here) and my Favorite Films of 2004 list.

A Final Word

It's been a pretty great year, and I couldn't have done it alone.

Well, okay, I take that back. I pretty much did it alone. But I am grateful to the other members of the CBI Community, who have tipped me off to good stories and ideas for posts, commented hilariously and often and just generally supported me this past year in my effort to gain an audience for this here writing o' mine. In particular, I'd like to thank all the blogs over there on my Blogroll (Ari, Horsey, Justin, Team Random Aggression, Lindsey and Konrad and the good people of PSoTD in particular, who have been with me since just about the beginning). And my brother Jonathan, always willing to correct an oversight or provide his own thoughtful counter-opinion. And all my non-virtual friends as well, who read the blog enthusiastically and often and then mess me up by knowing all kinds of weird, intimate stuff about my life. Cory, Vineet, Nathan, Brian, John, Kaz, Jason, Matt, Tim, Chuck...you guys know who you are.

Oh, and of course, my parents and grandparents, who try not to get too angry with me when I humiliate them publicly. Everyone is always shocked when I tell them my parents and even gradnparents read my blog. What can I say? They're cool like that.

King Kong (1933)

On the fascinating documentary that comes on the new King Kong DVD, someone (I forget who) makes a comment that sums up some of the film's importance and enduring appeal. Kong isn't based on a book, or a play. It's not an adaptation of some outside story. It's an idea created purely for the screen, that could only be realized in a movie. You couldn't do it on stage, and it would be frustrting to just read about a massive gorilla destroying New York City.



That's about right. There's a purity of essence to a movie like King Kong. It's not some postmodern ironic headtrip that you have to consider carefully after four viewings whether you enjoyed it or not. It's a movie that promises to show you a lifelike giant ape, and it delivers. Years later, it's amazing to go back and watch the film and realize just how much it delivers, the impressive quality and quantity of its visuals, and the expressive, emotive "character" of Kong himself.

Most special effects movies, even big-budget Hollywood ones, tend to skimp on the actual effects. Remember that movie Reign of Fire a few years back? There's a film that promised dragons. It promised large-scale military-style aerial battles against fire-breathing monstrous dragons. And then you see the movie, and there's nothing but a few scenes of smoke-and-fog-obscured lizard-like creatures, and a whole shitload of bad acting by Matthew McConaughey. There's a ratio of maybe one cool shot of a dragon to every 100 shots of McConaughey shamelessly mugging and chewing the scenery. And that ain't a good average.

Kong, on the other hand, is a relentless adventure epic from about minute 30 on. It takes a little bit to get going, particularly if you've seen the film before and know the set-up. Daredevil filmmaker Carl Denham (played by Robert Armstrong, based on the film's co-director Merian Cooper) recruits a crew of seamen and a beautiful homeless girl (Fay Wray) to journey to the mysterious Skull Island. It's a bunch of mainly humorless exposition, but it's over relatively quickly. And around the time you get to Skull Island, and Kong enters the picture, things pick up.

Kong is probably the single greatest special effect of all time. Created by Willis O'Brien, the father of stop-motion animation. The technique he pioneered way been in the 1910's, while working for Thomas Edison, remained the favorite way to realize movie monsters until, essentially, the 1980's. It wasn't until Spielberg and Phil Tippett and the team at ILM found a way to make dinosaurs on computers that stop-motion went out of style.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of the King Kong special effects are the interaction between the animated Kong and the real objects on the set and the human actors. In one of the film's most famous scenes, Kong shakes a bunch of desperate men off of a log. It reminded me of seeing Robert Zemeckis' breakthrough blend of cel animation and live action, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Both films manage to combine an animated character and human actors into a single shot realistically, in which they genuinely seem to interact. But the Zemeckis film came out in 1988, and Kong hit theaters way back in 1933.



The amazing thing isn't just that it's a giant ape who rather seamlessly interacts with his environment. It's that the ape is so damned human. He gives a real performance in the film. In fact, he gives a more human, emotional, charismatic performance than many of the film's human actors, particularly Bruce Cabot as John Driscoll. (He'll thankfully be played by a much better actor, Adrien Brody, in Peter Jackson's upcoming remake). O'Brien, like animation pioneer Walt Disney, had an intuitive understanding of movement and how body language and subtle gestures can translate into a lifelike personality.

(I hear from the, again, great documentary on Disc 2, that no interviews exist with O'Brien, only a few photos. At the time, studios were afraid to let out the secrets of how special effects were made, so they refused any press access to animators or the animation room at the studio, and essentially kept their special effects wizards out of the public eye).

Kong is a groundbreaking film in just about every way. I will say that, taken purely as a story, it is rather silly. I've never understood, from childhood on, why Denham would choose, of all things, to put Kong on Broadway in a theatrical performance. Surely making a movie starring the ape would be a way to expose the 8th Wonder of the World to the largest possible audience. I mean, how many people can you squeeze into a concert hall each night?

Not to mention the logistical nightmare of keeping a live audience safe from a giant caged animal. And of housing Kong somewhere in Manhattan so he could make nightly theatrical performances. Why not make a movie with Kong once, then sell access to that footage around the world for years? You could even drop him back on Skull Island once you were done with him (provided he wasn't signed by RKO Pictures to a three-picture deal, which might have resulted in a better sequel than Son of Kong).

But these are piddling little silly thoughts that merely occured to me during the movie. Overall, the thing is an unqualified triumph, a masterpiece. One of the essential films, and pretty much the greatest single special effects movie ever made. Hopefully, Peter Jackson finds some new, exciting spin on this material next month...