Liveblogging...We're Liveblogging...We're What's Happening...

It occurs to me that I spent all day liveblogging the Oscars and haven't written a word about it here. I guess it all just seemed kind of inconsequential this year. After months of expecting it not to happen, I think everyone just sort of got used to the idea. And I know they like to keep it at a reasonable length, but everything felt really rushed tonight. No spontaneity. It was very rigid.

I think the fact that it wasn't more competitive hurt as well. Best Actress aside - which was a two-way race between actual winner Marion Cotillard (whose movie I have yet to see) and the other favorite, Julie Christie (whose movie I also have yet to see, the plot of which Stewart turned into a weak Clinton joke) - all the big categories went to the expected winners. Many of the awards were TOTAL locks...Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem, Diablo Cody, No Country winning Best Picture. There was essentially no chance they weren't going to win. (I heard a few people mention Hal Holbrook for Best Supporting Actor, but Bardem was always the Conventional Wisdom). It kills any kind of momentum or suspense the show might have if everyone already pretty much knows who will win, and their expectations aren't subverted once.

And some of Stewart's lines were kind of funny (I loved the Norbit thing in the monologue about the Academy FINALLY recognizing films that weren't any good), but not so much the pre-planned "bits." (The whole thing with Travolta double-parking his jet was laaaaaaame. He'd never go for that kind of crap on "The Daily Show.") It felt like he was holding back, replacing his usually incisive wit with Bob Hope-inspired jocularity. And, legendary Oscar host though he is, I've never been a big Bob Hope guy.

Finally, what was up with all the Best Song nominees being from Enchanted? I know it's Alan Menken and all, but come on, people...was that all 2007 had to offer? Disney-style musical numbers starring the aggressively smiley Kristen Chenoweth? Where was this year's "Whoop That Trick"? Three 6 Mafia, we need you back!

Because I did the liveblog, I have a record of my Oscar-viewing experience, so I can treat you all to some highlights, with some commentary too mean-spirited or inappropriate for Mahalo:

- I really hated those "remember winning an Oscar" videos with all the legendary famous people. It's not the star's fault, really. There's no way to make a little film like that about being given an award and not come off like an egomaniacal show business phony. Even attempting humility during something like that would make you come off like an even bigger phony. Still, what was up with that Spielberg "winning an Oscar is like male menopause" line? He's got some pull in this town, right? He could ask them to edit that shit out of there...Just sounds weird and creepy.

- Speaking of ridiculous show business phonies, they had that montage of Best Actress winners and it showed Cher saying "winning this doesn't mean I am somebody, but I'm on my way." That might be the most insipid mock-humility I've ever heard. I'm constantly mystified by Cher's longstanding fame and popularity. Where, exactly, are you on your way to, 1988 Cher? (She won for the 1987 film Moonstruck). A featured role in the Farrelly's "slightly less forgettable than most other Farrelly Brothers movies" classic Stuck on You? A Michael Jordan-esque string of faux-retirements followed by half-assed reappearances?

- It's weird to me that Katherine Heigl appeared to have horrible stage fright, considering that she's a famous actress and all, but it makes sense. She got famous on television, not the stage. It's theoretically possible that she's never really had to do any performing at all in front of more than a few dozen people at a time.

- Why is The Rock still famous? He doesn't wrestle any more. He's never really made a good movie. (Some people like The Rundown, but it's mediocre at best, let's be honest. And if you like it, it's probably not because The Rock is great in it.) Can we all just move on from The Rock, please? I think we've all smelled what he's cooking at this point, and most of us just aren't really that into it for whatever reason.

- Seeing clips of Cuba Gooding, Jr. winning an award is officially Sad as of this year. It was funny a few years ago, when he was disgracing himself with Boat Trip, but I think appearances in both Daddy Day Camp AND Norbit in one year marks a paradigm shift. We're no longer talking a respectable actor who's made some odd choices. We're talking about a guy who is changing what it means to be an Academy Award winner. It now means, "individual who may or may not appear in Norbit."

- It's nice that Owen Wilson is apparently healthy again and ready to resume being a celebrity-type person, but I feel like he should have cut the tension with a joke or something. It didn't necessarily have to be a suicide joke. But he just kind of took the stage and got right into it like nothing had happened, but the whole world knows some shit happened. It's like, "you're the star of that odious-looking piece of shit Drillbit Taylor, right? Wacky it up, fucker."

- I didn't even watch Bee Movie, but from the marketing alone, I'm sick of death of this fucking Seinfeld Bee and wish he would go away and die forever. How is it that I love human Seinfeld so much but so desperately loathe his bee counterpart? They sound alike. They even kind of look alike. What is the deal with that? Who are these people?

- I've seen every nominated performance in this category. I probably would have given the Oscar to Cate Blanchett for her take on Bob Dylan in I'm Not There, easily the best performance in that movie. But Tilda Swinton would have been my second choice, and as you may recall, I wasn't much of a Michael Clayton fan. Though she was playing a stock character (hyper-aggressive but secretly vulnerable female executive), she really threw herself into the role. The wordless scene in which she freaks out in a restroom was probably the most impressive, performance-wise, in the film. (I really wasn't crazy about Clooney in the movie at all, save maybe the extended close-up at the end.) I thought she had the best speech of the night - no hysterics, no crying, just some thank-yous, a few quips, and it all came off really sincere.

- All of Jon Stewart's "pregnant celebs" jokes were kind of creepy, right? Especially the part about Jack Nicholson impregnating more women during the show. I get it...he used to be a ladies' man...We've all seen and enjoyed Carnal Knowledge. But the guy's like my grandpa's age, alright? It's gross now.

- Did I mention how much I hate James McAvoy? Who the fuck is this guy and how did he talk his way into a film career? In the movies, he's just bland and forgettable. In real life, he's obnoxious. It's really something...

- I wonder if the orchestra was at all affected by the flood of flopsweat gushing over the stage during Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen's "bit" about Judi Dench and Halle Berry. That was a 3 minute award presentation that seemed to last about 12 days. "See, it's funny, because they're fat young men, not and old lady and a sexy black woman!" Somebody get me Judd Apatow! We need 30 cc's of prime-time-TV-appropriate dick jokes, STAT!

- Harrison Ford and Jack Nicholson, at this point, clearly dread the Oscars and go out of a sense of obligation or to promote whatever they're working on. You could feel Harrison Ford wincing as he had to go through the motions tonight. "Oh, man, more of this bullshit. Do I still have that roach on me? It may be time for a bathroom break." It's kind of awesome.

- I know I should see Once and that everyone loves it...but I just can't motivate on it. It's in my Netflix queue, but never seems to make it to the top there...

- Most awesomely retarded statement of the night: Upon winning Best Original Score for Atonement, Dario Marianelli says "It's called a movie because it's a very moving film." Um, no. They're called movies because they are pictures that are moving. As in the phrase, "moving pictures." Not everything that's called a movie is moving. For example, Epic Movie. Also, Atonement was not particularly moving. In other words, STFU.

- One of the two women who won for that Documentary Short Freeheld (no, I haven't seen it) had the most irritating voice I've ever heard broadcast on TV. I actually wrote that on the Mahalo liveblog, if you can believe it. I don't know what came over me. I have to share my displeasure with this shrill voice with the entire world! Here's what I wrote:

First Oscar nomination and win for Cynthia Wade and Vanessa Roth. They're very excited, clearly, and thank HBO for showing this film. I'm sure it's a great film and all, but this woman has a very irritating voice. They thank the produces who believed that "a 38 minute movie can change minds."

What a dick. Also, I wrote "produces," not "producers," because I was going too fast. Dang.

- I would love to see the Coen's teenage project, Henry Kissinger: Man on the Go.

The CARLYLE GROUP!

Oliver Willis points me to HilRod's blog, where she's pointing people to a "grassroots" pro-Clinton website, HillarySpeaksForMe.com.

He then points out a few facts about the site's founder, Reshma Saujani...She's a political insider, not a private citizen. There's nothing "grassroots" about her support for Hillary Clinton. (I feel like there should be some kind of a joke here. "There's nothing grassroots about her support for Hillary Clinton, unless you mean...FILL IN WRY TURN OF PHRASE HERE". But I got nothing. This is one of those occasions where I end up sitting at my keyboard trying desperately to think up something funny until I realize it has been 10 minutes and I'm wasting my life).

In Oliver's list of facts about Saujani's political involvement over the years (she worked for Clinton as an intern, she's a frequently contributor to numerous campaigns, she was a NY delegate at the 2004 convention, etc.), one stood out to me.

"She works for the Carlyle-Blue Wave hedge fund, part of the Carlyle Group."

THE CARLYLE GROUP! [Thunderclap]

And what family's famously involved with the massive global investment firm, the Carlyle Group?

- George H. W. Bush, former U.S. President, Senior Advisor to the Carlyle Asia Advisory Board from April 1998 to October 2003.

- George W. Bush, current U.S. President. Was appointed in 1990 to the Board of Directors of one of Carlyle's first acquisitions, an airline food business called Caterair, which Carlyle eventually sold at a loss. Bush left the board in 1992 to run for Governor of Texas.

If you'll excuse me for just a moment, I'm going to go put on my tinfoil hat.

No Country for Old Milkshakes...With, Um, Juno

This SNL skit from this weekend is getting pretty viral. Daniel Plainview and his son, H.W., host a Food Network Show about milkshakes...Guess what it's called???!??!?!?



We thought of the idea for a possible Mahalo Daily a few weeks ago, and I had actually argued against it. Seriously, a podcast in which Daniel Plainview travels around the neighborhood drinking people's milkshakes. "It's just repeating the line he says over and over again in the movie!" I protested, and I guess I won the day because we didn't end up filming the episode...or maybe they just never got around to it.

Seeing it done by television professionals with decent impressionists...I still don't really think it's the funny. He's still stuck repeating Daniel Day-Lewis' dialogue from There Will Be Blood and drinking milkshakes, which actually has very little to do with the character or the movie. It seems to me that Daniel Plainview could be placed in many situations that would be far more amusing than an ice cream shop, but then you couldn't use the catchphrase.

But, it's There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men themed, so I put it on the blog. And on Mahalo's "I Drink Your Milkshake" page.

The Best Part of Oscar Night

It wasn't on the Oscar telecast. It was Jimmy Kimmel's star-studded response to Sarah Silverman's "I'm Fucking Matt Damon" song. I give you..."I'm Fucking Ben Affleck":

There's Only One Man Who Would Dare Give Me the Raspberry...

The Golden Raspberry Awards honor the worst Hollywood films of the year, as judged by a bunch of weirdos who intentionally watch a lot of mainstream pap for no good reason. (This year's big winner was I Know Who Killed Me). It's interesting that they tend to focus on infamous flops (like Showgirls) or obviously terrible films for pre-adolescents (like one of this year's big nominees, Bratz). The Razzies aren't so much about films that are surprisingly terrible, where you actually go see it thinking it will be good. They basically poke fun at the shit that everyone already knows is shit, like Epic Movie and anything starring Paris Hilton. (Look for The Hottie and the Nottie to make a big splash at next year's show.)

I attended the festivities this morning in Santa Monica for Mahalo Daily, and let me tell you...I felt right at home in this crowd. There's a certain type of comedy event that draws exclusively dudes who look like me: overweight, balding bearded guys. When I went to see Tenacious D with my brother at the Wiltern, it was like getting lost in a sea of Lons. I felt like I had crawled inside my own John Malkovich portal. And again at the Razzies, I felt right at home. (A woman from Hong Kong TV actually came up and interviewed me, probably because I looked so much like I belonged there. She didn't even seem to care that I had a microphone and was hosting my own podcast at the time.) In Los Angeles, I'm so rarely able to disappear into a crowd. I saw a photo of me at a party not long ago, and it looked like some idiot had cast Dave Attel in a remake of The Breakfast Club. It's like attractive-fresh-faced-youngster, attractive-fresh-faced-youngster, attractive-fresh-faced-younger, middle-aged-methadone-addict-with-an-eating-disorder. One of these things is not like the other.

Anyway, back to the Razzies.

It's about an hour-long "ceremony" in which Razzie cast members (pretty much an improv comedy group) dramatically read reviews of shit-terrible movies and run clips from them, then announce random winners chosen by some online poll or something.

This year's Worst Picture nominees were Daddy Day Camp, I Know Who Killed Me, Norbit, Bratz: The Movie and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. I think the biggest problem with the show from an entertainment standpoint is that these same movies are nominated in pretty much every category. (I Know Who Killed Me won an all-time record 7 Razzies, including Worst Picture). I mean, it makes sense in a way...If you think Daddy Day Camp is the worst movie of the year (and I haven't seen it, but you're most likely on the right track), it's probably because you think it had the worst screenplay and the worst performances.

But still...it starts to seem like a pile-on after a while. A full hour of grown adults complaining about Norbit feels like overkill. I'm sure it's bad, but what the hell did you expect? Why did you see Norbit in the first place? I see a lot of bad movies, but I knew enough to avoid Norbit.

After the actual ceremony, I did a brief interview with the creator of the Razzies (the HeadBerry, as he's called) John Wilson. He's a very nice guy who looks a lot like Roger Ebert with a beard, and because I get a bit brave and kind of stupid when there's a camera on, I made sure to mention that observation right of the bat, just to make sure I offended him immediately, in case he was going to give me an interesting interview or something. (He was actually very cool and took my abuse in stride).

I asked him about Halle Berry coming to accept her award personally for Catwoman a few years back, and I wish we could put the entire answer into the podcast. (There won't be time). The awards themselves may be about taking cheap shots at the same starlets Perez and TMZ pick on every day, but this guy obviously has a deep affection for schlock cinema, and I can of course respect that. I've seen Can't Stop the Music on more than one occasion. Projected theatrically. Once as part of a double feature with The Apple. And let me tell you, Lindsay Lohan's got nothin' on The Village People.


I'll post the Razziecast whenever we release it this week.

Artie Lange Death Watch

Wow...Artie Lange does not seem to being doing well. Check out his reaction when Conan asks him about his recent sick days from the "Howard Stern Show."



The best part of this clip is not even Artie's drug jokes, which only go over half the time. It's Conan's barely-concealed terror at having a guest who only wants to tell "the last time I did crystal meth" anecdotes. Somehow, I'm thinking this wasn't brought up at his pre-interview.

[Hat tip: Defamer]

It Could Have Been Me...

You can't quote FDR! That's totally my idea!

Barack Obama's been getting all the good press lately, and ScarJo has made a YouTube video praising him, but I still kind of thought Hillary Clinton would get the nomination for President until today.

No significant votes or delegate-related matters happened today. However, the Clinton campaign must have in its possession some truly ugly numbers regarding their candidate's prospects. That's the only way I can explain their line latest line of Obama attack , among the most intensely lame and desperate political arguments imaginable.

We shouldn't vote for Obama because he's a plagiarist!



Wow..."You can't quote FDR! That's totally my idea!"

It's possible Obama saw Deval Patrick's speech and responded to similar allegations in the same way, but I'd hardly go so far as to call this plagiarism. This is once again Clinton trying to play Karl Rove. Obama's giving all these big powerful oratories and energizing a lot of younger voters and it's giving him big last-minute surges in a lot of primaries, so she's trying to turn her weakness (inability to out-inspire Obama) in a strength ("well, at least my speeches are original!")

I think even Karl Rove might feel like this argument's a little thin. You can besmirch the military service of John Kerry because it happened decades ago and very few people actually witnessed it in person. We have videotape of Deval Patrick and Barack Obama and can decide for ourselves whether or not one of them stole a speech from the other.

Also, Deval Patrick is alive and well and saying stuff like this:

"Senator Obama and I are long-time friends and allies. We often share ideas about politics, policy and language. The argument in question, on the value of words in the public square, is one about which he and I have spoken frequently before. Given the recent attacks from Senator Clinton, I applaud him responding in just the way he did."

Oops.

So, the only thing I can conclude from the Clinton campaign's accusation of "plagiarism" is that they know a huge loss is imminent and are throwing up a Hail Mary, attacking their opponent any way they can and praying something will stick. Color me surprised.

Michael Bay Demonstrates Signs of Possessing Sense of Humor...Scientists Baffled...

If Michael Bay is funny, why is all the comedy in all his films so completely tone-deaf? Perhaps some assistant whom he trusts just informed him this was funny, much as a translator might discreetly inform his boss that the Premier of Slovakia has issued another one of his trademark bon mots and a twitter of amusement might be an appropriate reaction.

Either way, it made me laugh:



[Found via Best Week Ever]

Fear and Loathing in Hyrule

Maybe I need to start watching Boing Boing's podcast more often. This edition of 8-bit cinema combines Legend of Zelda, Rad Racer and Hunter S. Thompson. It's brilliant:

Senioritis?

Like sexism and racism, ageism can be pernicious. So I don't think his advanced age is a good enough reason to not vote for John McCain, even though he would be the oldest man we've ever elected to the presidency. If he was still sharp, and you felt he was the best man for the job, and he'd nominated a vice-president who you felt was competent enough to take over for him should he die in office, I don't see a problem.

However, when he starts saying this like this (from a CNN transcript today, found via Digby), it may be time for the GOP to start considering other options NOW. You really want to run a massive presidential campaign for a guy who forgets how public school works on national TV?

Also, I do not believe in mandates. I believe that every American should have affordable and available health care and I'd like to talk just an additional minute about that. But I'm not going to mandate that they do. I want every American to have affordable and available education. But I'm not going to mandate that they do.

But that's...actually exactly what we do with education. We mandate that you get it, at least until you're, what, 16? 17? I mean, you don't necessarily have to go to public school, but you have to do enroll in some kind of verifiable education process. We even have a word for people who avoid this process - truants.

This isn't just a slip of the tongue, mind you. He's using this example to argue against legally mandating health insurance. So are we to assume that his argument is based on a fallacy? Or that this isn't the real reason he opposes health care mandates, and he's simply using it to disguise some ulterior motive. Neither is attractive for a presidential candidate.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

[NOTE: This film opens in April. I got a chance to check out an early screening this week. The final film may end up being different from the cut I watched.]

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is the latest in a constant stream of movies emanating from Judd Apatow. It was directed by "Undeclared" writer Nicholas Stoller, and only produced by Apatow, but it's an obvious cousin of Superbad, The 40 Year Old Virgin and especially Knocked Up.

At Mahalo the other day, we discussed whether Apatow's motley team of comic actors has a "Pack" name yet. Rat Pack, Frat Pack...what comes next? I'd propose Whack Pack, because all of their films glorify unfuckable nerds, but Howard Stern's already using that one. Other suggestions are welcome.

Anyway, like all the other Packs that have come before them, the Whack Pack's schtick has started to wear thin after only a few films. There's an unrelenting sameness to these movies, beyond the similarities of their protagonists. (Apatow has defined his genre as "nerdy guys with hot chicks," and Sarah Marshall proudly carries on this tradition.)

The concept of melding the subversive fun of gross-out/stoner humor with the sweetness of a screwball romance is a really good one, but Apatow just kind of puts these two styles side-by-side in his movies rather than really letting them play off of one another. (Compare that to the Farrelly's Something About Mary, still a better film than any from Apatow's collection, where the gross-out shock scene inform the main action...Mary's such a cool chick because she'll overlook things like her date lighting her neighbor's dog aflame or getting his semen in her hair).

Sarah Marshall, I think, represents something of a tipping point for Judd & Co. It's certainly not a bad film, and it's far far far more likable and funny than the atrocious Apatow-produced Walk Hard from last year. But like that painful dud, Sarah Marshall is lazy and formulaic and predictable, implying that this sudden, massive outpouring of material from Apatow's R-Rated Comedy Factory may have depleted the man's reserve of funny.



The writer-star of Sarah Marshall, Jason Segel, first worked with Apatow on the awesome "Freaks and Geeks," and popped up in a supporting role in Knocked Up. He works fairly well as the romantic lead here, and seems as capable as Apatow or Seth Rogen at penning dick jokes, but I'm still convinced he's better used as a wacky supporting character. (He was fantastic in "Undeclared" as Carla Gallo's creepy ex-boyfriend Eric).

Segel plays Peter Bretter, a composer for the TV show "Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime," starring his girlfriend, Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), as a no-nonsense homicide detective. (The brief clips we get from "Crime Scene," a biting send-up of "CSI," are among the film's highlights).

When Sarah dumps Peter for the ludicrous British rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), he pretty much falls to pieces. A string of painful one-night stands (including one with Gallo) convinces Peter that he needs a change of scenery, so he jets off to Hawaii. Regrettably, he realizes, immediately after checking in with the cute girl at the front desk (Mila Kunis), that Sarah and her new beau are staying at the very same Hawaiian resort.

(A brief note here about Kunis, who's cute but somewhat forgettable in the film and whom I probably won't bring up again...She has a terrible-looking fake tan. Atrocious. I get that she's not normally tan, and that her character's supposed to live in Hawaii, but couldn't she have just arrived on the set a week early and gotten a real tan? She looks orange here, and it's shocking to me that a major movie studio with millions of dollars can't get an actress a healthy, natural tan.)

From about 15 minutes in, you can pretty much see all of the plot developments coming. Peter cries a lot about his break-up, then slowly discovers that life still has a lot to offer, even without his famous celebrity girlfriend. He flirts with the front desk girl, he forms a few friendships with some of the resort's employees and guests, he learns a little bit about himself and so forth.

I expect a romantic comedy to have a familiar storyline, but what makes Sarah Marshall tiresome is that most of the jokes themselves, the "shenanigans" if you will, come off as familiar and perfunctory. Bill Hader (a Superbad veteran), for example, tries his best to make Peter's brother-in-law, with whom he videochats on his laptop, memorable in his few scenes, but I wasn't even sure I understood the concept behind his character. He's uptight? He loves his wife?

I saw Apatow moderate a Q&A with Daniel Day-Lewis and P.T. Anderson last year, and had the same feeling watching him on stage that I had watching this movie. Weary of ceaseless, sophomoric dick, vag and gay jokes. Nonplussed by shock humor. Ready for something new.

Segel's script tries to separate itself from the pack by including less fratboy humor while including more nudity (mostly male) and frank, overt sexuality. I'd say it works about half the time. He gets big laughs for playing a long, dramatic sequence in the buff. And Kristen Bell's very hot and funny, so I won't complain about a montage of her and Brand in a variety of acrobatic sexual positions, even though I doubt she'd wear a bra throughout that kind of lovemaking marathon. A sub-plot with "30 Rock" star Jack McBrayer as a virgin unable to pleasure his new bride, however, misses "comedy" entirely and heads straight for "cringe-worthy and uncomfortable."

Like most comedies that only work 50-75% of the time, Forgetting Sarah Marshall wears out its welcome, and an extended sequence near the end in which Peter performs his Dracula rock opera could seriously be lost altogether. (It's supposed to be really ridiculous and campy, but that doesn't mean we want to see a whole lot of it at the end of an already-long comedy). I sense that most audiences who will see the movie will like it, because they're fans of the actors and the style and because it's good enough to keep your interest. But I'm also starting to doubt that Apatow will be able to keep this pace up for more than another year or so, and whether or not I will ever again be excited to see one of his movies. Maybe the whole point is to make as much as possible for a few years and then take off for Hawaii himself.

Mike Huckabee's Curriculum Vitae

CONTACT INFORMATION
Mike Huckabee
Former Arkansas Governor
1-800-GET-HUCK

SUMMARY STATEMENT
I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards.

EDUCATION
Ouachita Baptist University
M.A. in Miracles (Minored in Angelic Studies)
Dissertation: "Is Miracle Whip Technically a Miracle"?

Southwestern Baptist Seminary
No degree received
Major Course of Study: Monsterology
Significant Papers: "Werewolves and Mummies: A Study in Contrasts," "For the last time, Frankenstein is the name of the scientist! The monster doesn't have a name!"

I Can't Believe It's Not Harvard
B.S. in Intelligent Design
Significant Papers: "Bananas and Peanut Butter: Not just Elvis' favorite sandwich combination, but an atheist's worst nightmare"

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Emphasis: Potions

FELLOWSHIPS
The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants
The Fellowship of the Ring

PUBLICATIONS / BOOKS
That one about how I used to be fat
"The Five People You'll Meet in Hell"
"Eat, Pray, Love, Pray, Shit, Pray, Work Out, Pray, Sleep, Pray, Pray, Pray"
"Running for President for Dummies"

The Mind Boggles

What's wrong with Michelle Malkin? I mean, for real. Beyond just being a cruel nativist simpleton.



Ill-advised doesn't really begin to cover it. Aside from the atrocious singing voice and the amateurish piano-playing ability, Malkin demonstrates approximately zero understanding of satire.

The song is supposed to make fun of Hillary's tendency to cry on the day before big votes. I'll state plainly right here: a parody song about this could be funny. I don't know Hillary personally, so I really can't say for certain that he tears are inauthentic, but it certainly does seem coincidental that she's always so overcome with emotion right when she wants Americans to feel sympathetic towards her. I bring this up only to make it clear from the beginning - I do not object to Malkin's attempt to poke fun of Hillary Clinton's phoniness. She strikes me as a phony, so I'm not insulted that someone would accuse her of being a phony (though I think the video does a poor job of making this case).

But in order to mock Clinton's tears, you actually have to do something other than point out the fact that she cries. That's not mockery. That's just pointing out. The lyrics of the song aren't funny, and frequently don't make sense. ("Even Clintons have a right to dream"? Doesn't that contradict the song's entire critique, that the Clintons are both amoral schemers who would do anything to achieve their dreams of power and political success?) There are no jokes. At one point, Malkin simply sings all the names of the states with remaining Democratic primaries. Ha ha.

And the visuals are just scanned newspaper and magazine clippings, reminding us over and over again that, yes, Hillary Clinton cried. Warbling painfully over a mundane little melody on YouTube doesn't make Hillary look crazy or foolish. It makes Michelle Malkin look crazy and foolish. Which is the opposite of the intended purpose.

Plus, do Republicans really think it's funny or clever or significant that Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein? He speaks frequently and passionately about his Christian faith, so Michelle, who follows politics for a living certainly know he's not really Muslim. (Not that I wouldn't enthusiastically vote for a Muslim if I felt that he or she were the best candidate. But this is the basis of Republican attempts to tag Obama with the name "Hussein." He's one o' them crazy A-rabs what wants to blows us all to kingdom come cause they hates our freedoms.) Therefore, I must conclude that she thinks it's funny, which explains why she's so woefully inept at comedy video production.

[Hat tip, Tbogg]

Happy Valentimes

Despite only featuring me in a brief cameo, today's Mahalo Daily is both funny and awesome:

Double Talk Express?

I follow this guy Cliff on Twitter, and he made a comment about a half hour ago that "Democrats always make things complicated." And I thought, "well, sometimes things are complicated." And that's when I realized he was probably right.

Republicans don't do nuance. I worked at a bookstore with this conservative, very religious guy once, and he told me that he believed that life was entirely binary. Things are either good or bad, black or white. There is no gray.

"But haven't you ever felt like you loved someone and hated them at the same time?," I asked.

"No, that's just a misleading emotion. Deep down, I actually love them or hate them."

We went on like that for a while. The thing is, he's EXTREMELY INCORRECT. Very few things in life are that easy. But, because we remain a rather primitive species in the geologic sense, this faulty reasoning makes a certain amount of common sense to us. It feels like life is this way, or at least, it feels like life ought to be this way - full of clear-cut decisions, well-lit paths and simple truths.

Which is why George Bush can get away with speaking only in these terms, every day, for eight years. (Bush's worldview is so over-simplified and childish, he perpetually sounds as if he's describing his foreign policy to an elementary school class. "America had to go give some of the Bad People a Time Out but if they promise to be good and learn how to share, they can rejoin the rest of the group.")

So what I'm saying is, if you ask a Democrat what to do about a war, you get some long-winded bloviations about strategies, externalities to consider and nitpicky details. Most of it's bullshit anyway, but there's effort made to make the bullshit sound reasonable. But ask a Republican about war and you'll just get some Fantasyland abstraction. "We must be ever-vigilant in our fight against those who would threaten the sanctity of our homeland and assail our way of life."

Now take a look at this anti-McCain ad:



It's good, right? I mean, it uses his own words to make him look stupid, always an effective technique. But I don't really think you need to try this hard to make McCain look stupid. I think the ideal anti-McCain ad might just be that video of him promising to stay in Iraq for 10,000 years. Just play that, no text, no subtitles, and then we hear "I'm Barack Obama, I approved this message and I'm as dumbfounded as you are."

That's seriously all you need. Simple. Old Man Love War. Young Man Prefer Compromise. Obama '08.

My First Commentary Track!

Because what's a classy foreign film without a self-congratulatory audio commentary?

Ceci n'est pas une blog post

Today's Mahalo Daily just might be the best thing ever. Seriously, a MUST SEE for film fans, and not just because it features me and my brother.

Just Another Darwin Day

So, former game show host and present Nixon apologist Ben Stein has a new film out in which he argues that God-talk is forcibly kept out of the classroom by jackbooted professorial thugs, possibly linked up with this whole Liberal Fascism movement I keep hearing so much about...

Here's how he described Expelled on his new...sigh...blog:

In a scientific world gone mad, EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed is the controversial documentary that will chronicle Ben Stein’s confrontation with the Neo-Darwinian machine, exposing widespread suppression and entrenched discrimination in his heroic quest to bring back freedom in our institutions, laboratories and most importantly, in our classrooms, with the help of the world’s top scientists, educators and thinkers.

I've got to say, it's pretty ballsy to come right out and call your Creationism documentary No Intelligence Allowed. This is the easiest punchline for critics and satirists since the heydey of '90s alt-rock mainstay Garbage.

You've also got to love the epic language with which Stein describes his bitchy academic slapfight. "You big meanies won't give my nonsensical bullshit beliefs the same weight as your rigorously-tested scientific theories!" suddenly becomes "Let My People Go!" I mean, his confrontation with the Neo-Darwinian machine? Is that "machine" anything like a large, disconnected group of angry nerds with mild superiority complexes? Seriously, his heroic quest to bring back freedom in our institutions? Freedom to believe made-up fake shit? This is too much...

The whole blog is chock full of complete dumbfuckery. I can't imagine how silly the movie is going to be. I mean, say what you will about Ben Stein...I enjoyed (and once appeared on) his game show. His single scene in Ferris Bueller is mildly amusing. Those Clear Eyes commercials weren't the worst thing I've ever seen. Um, he's probably not the single most oily douchebag from the Nixon administration...

But strong, well-reasoned argumentation has never been his strong suit. Attentive readers will recall his unspeakably distasteful, sociopathic reaction to Hurricane Katrina. The main post on the site right now is about how Charles Darwin's birthday has supplanted Lincoln's birthday in the "imagination" of Americans. (They were both born on the same day: February 12, 1809). Which, of course, is not true. Like most people who believe evolution is essentially correct, I couldn't have told you Charles Darwin's birthday off the top of my head.

But Stein doesn't stop with mere mendacity. Check this out:

The title of Charles Darwin’s book is not “The Origin of The Species.” The full title seems shocking: “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.” That last half of the title, often overlooked, sounds like it could come straight out of a Ku Klux Klan manual - which is precisely why Big Science rarely quotes the full title (even though Darwin was not referring specifically to “man” in his use of the words “favoured races.”). Big Science is uncomfortable with even the suggestion that evolutionary theory might favor politically incorrect thinking.

This is some intensely intellectually dishonest writing right here. Stein essentially acknowledges that his analysis is incorrect. Darwin used the term "favoured races" in a way that had nothing to do with our current ideas about racial diversity in humans. Then he just goes ahead and discusses implications of his incorrect analysis anyway. I mean...what? That's the opposite of how persuasive argumentation works. You establish a premise and then back it up with evidence, guy.

Darwinian evolution theory is a viable scientific theory. Author of The God Delusion Richard Dawkins has stated that Darwin’s evolution theory has provided atheists with “intellectual fulfillment.” If you grant that, then you must also grant that it has given a great many racists “intellectual fulfillment,” too.

Because...some racists...many years ago...were inspired and comforted by elements of Darwin's theories...that means they are wrong? Or it means they are right, but so toxic, we should pretend they are wrong? W

Ben Stein is an old man, and I'm pretty sure a reasonably intelligent middle-school student could unravel this argument. I mean, it's not like racists have exclusively used evolution to justify their racism. They'll use any means to justify it they can think of. What about religion? Ann Coulter said we should go kill the leaders of Middle Eastern countries and convert the people to Christianity, not Secular Humanism. That mean we should give up on Christianity? Hey, Ann Coulter used it in a racist context!

What a child this man is. If you want to be super-super-religious, go for it. No one's telling you not to. But why do strangers have to justify your belief system to you? If Ben Stein's answer really is The Truth, then Science will come around to it eventually through the standard process of hypothesis and experimentation. He knows that won't happen, so he has to cheat, to bully and pester people into accepting his unique brand of ignorant twaddle.

But cheating is all Stein knows how to do. A little box on his website features insulting snippets from comments/e-mails from detractors and reads: "Intelligent Quote of the Day!" Rather than present arguments from his critics and then take them on honestly in the forthright manner that might spark an actual dialogue, he prefers to cherry-pick substance-free insults and present them as the sole opposition. See, I must make a lot of sense if all these hysterics come here unprovoked and insult me! What a loser.

[Hat tip: Sadly No]

The Return of Raimi?

I miss Sam Raimi. His movies weren't always classics (though a few of them, particularly Evil Dead 2, could actually be described as such). But they were always fun and above all daring. Films like Darkman and Quick and the Dead aren't exactly award-worthy, but they were fueled by a manic desire to entertain: even when they didn't work, they were interesting failures.

But the last film that felt authentically Raimi-esque was 2000's The Gift. Ever since, he's been embroiled in this underwhelming Spider-Man franchise. Yes, yes, some of the effects are nice, and Alfred Molina's good in Part 2, but I think The Fanboy Nation should be capable of admitting the truth at this late point...they're pretty crappy movies, especially Part 1 but especially Part 3.

So hearing about his next project, the brilliantly-titled Drag Me To Hell, brought a smile to my face this morning. The synopsis according to IMDb: "An unsuspecting person becomes the recipient of a supernatural curse." Sounds vaguely familiar...but I'll take it.

And Harry Knowles is reporting that "unsuspecting person" will be played by Juno star Ellen Page. Page stepping in for Bruce Campbell, huh? I'm intrigued...

Damn You Paparazzo!

I don't post often about the very public mental collapse of Britney Spears, because there are plenty of other websites happy to provide a minute-by-minute breakdown of her breakdown. But I have to say...this kind of treatment 24-7 would make me batshit insane as well:



That's not trying to take her picture. That's just taunting her, middle-school style. I know these guys say they're just doing their job to excuse the taking photos part, but how do they excuse the sneering, needlessly cruel attitudes? It takes a bunch to make me feel sorry for a billionaire pop princess, but here we are.

About These Rebate Checks...

Surely you've heard that the government's gonna send us all a big ol' economy boosting check. It's pretty exciting. I'm-a get me a new Xbox game.

There have been some objections to this plan to delay the eventual crash. One of the Republicans running for President, I think it was Ron Paul, brought up the uncharacteristically sane point that a lot of this money will be spent on foreign goods (say broken, poisonous shit from China?), helping other people's economy more than ours. Tbogg here makes the case that giving money away to financially comfortable people almost ensured it will be socked away for a rainy day and thus do the economy very little good.

I haven't heard anyone make what is, to me, kind of an obvious point...how much of this money will get spent on drugs? A know a whole lot of people who will take a check from the government for $600 and immediately spend it on narcotics. That money'll give something a boost...but I can't promise it will be the Dow.

The Unrentables: Copper Mountain

The Unrentables were DVD's we had in our collection at Laser Blazer for more than 2 years that had never rented, not once. Unfortunately, as I no longer work at a video store, I rarely get a chance to review an "unrentable" any more. That is, until my friend Adam suggested I Netflix Cooper Mountain, a 1983 comedy in which buddies Jim Carrey and Alan Thicke (!) hit the slopes and try to get laid. Yes, I also thought it sounded like Dumb and Dumber. But this one came out in 1983, so technically the Farrellys are ripping David Mitchell off.

THE UNRENTABLES: VOLUME #4
Director: David Mitchell
IMDb Rating: 1.5

First off, I have to say, this is the worst-quality DVD transfer I've ever seen. It looks like it was recorded on a first-generation VCR over a "Circus of the Stars" rerun, then transferred on to DVD using a Commodore 64. Plus, I think it's in Mono.

Apparently, the name of the movie is not Copper Mountain, as the Netflix sleeve indicated. It's actually called, I swear, Copper Mountain (A Club Med Experience). Remind me to punch Adam in the back of the head next time I see him.

I think this theme song includes the lyric "I can hear the sound of my heart on fire." What the hell does that mean?

WOW, Jim Carrey is young here. He and Alan Thicke make an odd pairing for a buddy comedy. Actually, Alan Thicke would make an odd pairing with just about anyone in a buddy comedy. "Alan Thicke and Larry the Cable Guy are...Airport Security! Checking your bag is never a drag. Coming this Fall." Oh, shit, someone get my agent on the phone. And, um, get me an agent.

Thicke and Carrey have some excited banter about "taking Club Med by storm" during the rest of the opening credits. Carrey does an impression here of someone, but damned if I recognize it. I was, after all, only 5 years old when this film came out. Maybe it was Frank Gorshin.

Man, the sound on this DVD is truly, exquisitely awful. I'm listening to the thing on my computer with goddamn headphones and I can barely make out what Alan Thicke is saying. Perhaps Joe's House of Chicken Wings and DVD Audio Mastering is doing me a favor not letting me hear the dialogue, but it's kind of frustrating.

So the guys arrive at a Club Med ski resort and sort of generally mill about for a while. Ronnie Hawkins Band is apparently playing at the club, and Carrey does a really terrible Sammy Davis Jr. impression for them. Actually, it's not just an impression. He sings the entire song "Mr. Bojangles" in a bad Sammy Davis Jr. voice. Head, meet desk.

Carrey's charming Rat Pack fantasy is interrupted by Ronnie Hawkins, who feels the band is not country, not "humpty dumpty" enough for his tastes to use his own terminology, but all is well after they play Credence's "Lodi" together.

We're 10 minutes into Copper Mountain...not a single character has been introduced nor plot initiated, and now I'm watching an Alan Thicke stand-in wipe out on a slalom run. "That ain't no waterbed," he says as he stands up, covered in snow. Cue riotous laughter.

Oh, you don't get it? You see, we find out in the next scene that he's a waterbed salesman! Yeah, I didn't know jokes worked retroactively like that either, but it's in Copper Mountain, so it must be right.

Carrey is now doing a Steve Martin bit for two girls in a hot tub. I haven't seen a comedy try to milk impressions this hard since Dana Carvey's brief foray into feature films. Anyone remember that master class, Clean Slate?

So now, Thicke has challenged the club's bartender, Yogi, to a skiing race. He keeps calling him "Corky," condescendingly, but it can't be a "Life Goes On" reference, because that didn't start for a few years after this. Why is the name Corky, pre-TV reference, more silly than the name Yogi, which already had a silly pop culture reference point? I felt a little bit of actual hope, as it appeared for a moment that this Thicke-racing-Yogi thing might turn into an actual story, but it's 10 minutes later already and nothing additional has happened.

Instead, we get some scenes in which Carrey tells some women that he's a loser who can't meet women. I think it might be the constant lame, pathetic, sub-Robin Williams schtick he's throwing at everyone it earshot, but it could also be that he's constantly telling women that he's a loser who can't meet them.

After we wait through this horror and get to race day, we still don't get a ski race before we get another several songs from Ronnie Hawkins. Including a fucking "Lodi" encore! I mean, are you kidding me? The movie's less than a half hour old and I'm watching my third Credence cover by Ronnie Hawkins? It's like David Mitchell using the mechanics of moviemaking to cockpunch me. Maybe this is the kind of cinematic violence politicians are always railing against.

Wait...wait...Ronnie's now introducing some other musicians. Are there going to be more fucking songs? I thought this was a skiing comedy! It's like watching a Ronnie Hawkins concert in the mountains that some cruel bastard has recorded. Seriously, there's some chick on stage singing "One Fine Day" now. I'VE BEEN RONNIE ROLLED! Frankly, I would have expected more from The Hawk.

There's a scene on a ski lift with a husband and wife, or maybe it's a father and daughter. She wants to leave the mountains and he's asking her to stay. Who the hell are these people? What happened to the main characters? The entire movie has turned into a Ronnie Hawkins concert populated by strangers. (The scene ends with the couple making out, so I guess it's the husband and wife. That or "David Mitchell" is the name under which Bernardo Bertolucci directs ski comedy-musicals).

Finally, FINALLY, the ski race starts. I realize now that the rest of this movie is so fucking boring, I've been eagerly anticipating a ski race featuring Alan Thicke and a fat guy named Yogi. Britney Spears lifestyle choices are seem more and more reasonable all the time.

After an uneventful race, we get more music with Ronnie Hawkins' Band. This is Volume #4 of The Unrentables and, for the first time, I'm seriously considering turning the movie off. Has Copper Mountain finally broken my gentle spirit? Is this the end of The Unrentables?

....


....


....


No! I will fight on!

Some French skiier named Jean-Claude Killy is going on a helicopter ride to the top of a particularly high slope. The pilot lists off his skiing accomplishments, pretty much into the camera, in case we weren't sufficiently impressed by the name "Jean-Claude Killy." I'm pretty sure this is the last we will ever see of this guy in the movie. The producers just wanted us to know that...yeah...they can get both Ronnie Hawkins and Jean-Claude Killy in their movie. What big stars have cameos in your low-budget ski comedy musical? Oh, you've never made a low-budget ski comedy musical? Bwa ha ha!

Ridiculously, after that brief scene at the copter, there's another musical number. This is punishing. Did Sondheim write this? It's wall-to-wall music. Mitchell inserts all these shots of people snapping their fingers and wiggling around, to let us know we're supposed to find this entertaining. "You're finding Copper Mountain an enjoyable experience, viewer! Such as you might engage in on a frosty mountain morning while oversized reflective shades and a yellow headband."

(There's an insert of a dork picking up his skis and playing them like a guitar! I wonder what ever became of this man, who played DORK WITH SKIS #1 in Copper Mountain. Is he still alive? Did he proudly tell family and friends to go see the film and look for him?)

I notice that Ronnie Hawkins didn't even hang around for the remainder of the concert scenes. He's back in the lodge, most likely drinking himself into oblivion, trying to avoid having to hear Jim Carrey's wacky take on Jim J. Bullock.

Okay, so it has been 50 minutes and there's still no story. I guess it's just not going to happen at all, and I should just resign myself to that fact now. What did Mitchell imagine would keep our attention? Shots of skiing? Jim Carrey's loopy, somewhat-similar impressions of megastars like Bruce Dern? Cheesy music?

Speaking of music, there's a sequence in which Alan Thicke watches some guys skiing when we hear two different songs on the soundtrack at the same time. There's an instrumental score playing in the background and then some '80s pop song being played above that. The effect is bizarre and disorienting, like a Fiery Furnaces song without all that messy melody and genius. Hey, Dave...Two songs at the same time isn't, like, twice as good as one song. It's noise. Also, I hope you die.

Thicke wins a big race, and just as he's about to pass the finish line, the announcer says, "Oh, it's going to be a fun race indeed!" That's just...strange. Can he not see the action? Are we hearing his comments on some kind of delay? Is he as bored as me, and just skipping ahead to the next race?

I almost CAN'T keep watching this movie because of the double-soundtrack thing. There's seriously TWO SONGS playing with two entirely different tempos at the same time for 15 full minutes.

Anyway, Carrey wipes out bigtime on the slopes and inadvertently meets two sexy ladies. He takes them to...wait for it...A ROCK SHOW STARRING RONNIE HAWKINS! OH, GREAT!

And, at just under 60 minutes, we roll credits. Thank God. Why is this a movie? Who thought there was enough material here for a movie? I demand answers!

Do We Still Have to Let Them Vote?

Hundreds of angry Virginians called their State Election Board today to find out why their polling places weren't open, apparently unaware that their state does not vote on Super Tuesday. (So, really, how Super could it be?) This is almost as bad as the anti-war Republicans who voted for the crotchety 100-year-old warmonger. (Carl Reiner and John McCain should really take the "Crotchety 100-Year-Old Warmonger" routine on the road if this whole presidential thing doesn't work out...)

For some reason, people hear that everyone across America is doing something, anything, and they want to do it to. "What? Meet the Spartans is the #1 comedy in America? Let's go right now! I do not find that kind of comedy lazy at all! Instead, I find references to Chris Crocker's YouTube videos witty and inventive!"

McCain the Favorite of Dumbshits Who Don't Pay Attention

How else to explain this headline?

McCain the favorite of anti-war Republicans.

The weird thing about that is...McCain totally isn't against the war. Or any other war. As near as I can tell, he's just a general fan of the whole enterprise of war. He celebrates war's entire catalog.



If you're an anti-war Republican, you should do one of four things:

(1) Try to ignore all the crazy stuff and vote Ron Paul

(2) Switch parties

(3) Protest the lack of viable anti-war Republican candidates by not voting

(4) Shoot yourself in the face because you suck at life

I'm not seeing "vote for John McCain even though, if the Iraq War were a teenage girl, he'd be standing beneath its bedroom window hoisting above his head a boombox bumping 'In Your Eyes'" anywhere on that list. Fancy that...

Seriously, this kind of thing makes me want to stop following politics altogether. Paying attention to literally any other kind of news would be more satisfying. Perhaps I'll start blogging more hip hop feuds...

Attention Famous Hollywood-Type People

Do not get your lips done. It makes you look stupid. Some women have big lips, some women have small lips. It has made a difference to approximately zero men in history whether a woman to whom they are otherwise attracted has big, full lips or thin lips. And it doesn't impress other women - they're just waiting until you leave the room so they can laugh at you behind your back, because they can tell you had your lips done.

Money Spent On Pointless Procedure: A Shitload

Strangers Impressed: FUCKING NONE

In closing:



UPDATE:

The Best Part is the Commercials

Watch me live-blog the only part of the Big Game that really matters...The Ads! Some of which apparently feature Carlos Mencia!



And if that doesn't convince you, nothing will...

Thoughts on Tonight's Debate

As I did last night for the GOP debate, I liveblogged tonight's Obama-Clinton face-off at the Kodak Theater for Mahalo. It seemed, to me anyway, that Clinton walked away with the victory tonight.

Not that Obama did poorly. In fact, he made some excellent points I had never heard him make before, which is more than you can say for any of the Republicans. (Ron Paul made some excellent points last night, but they're the same excellent points he interjects whenever moderators give him a moment to actually speak).

I think Obama's answer tonight on immigration is my favorite statement on the topic from anyone in this presidential race thus far. (He actually implied that moderator Wolf Blitzer was "scapegoating" illegal immigrants for problems that aren't their fault. Face!) I don't like his health care plan all that much, but I agree with him that forcing everyone to buy insurance, even if you make it less expensive, isn't the way to go. And unlike Clinton, who hedges on the war and still can't help but talk about the Middle East like a Republican, I believe he's sincere when he says he will get us out of Iraq quickly and avoid "mission creep."

But still...just about every single major argument you could make against nominating Clinton was made tonight at the Kodak, and she came off really really well anyway. People get so caught up in what people say about Hillary Clinton, they forget about the fact that she'd have to be extremely good at what she does to inspire such animosity in the first place. There's a reason she and Bill have long been considered "unbeatable" in a major election. Cause they're almost unbeatable.

To me, the Big Question for which she's never had a good answer is the Clinton Dynasty one. "Why should we elect the former First Lady of a decent but not-terribly-distinguished administration when what the country so desperately wants is to change course and try a new strategy?" If ever there were an awkward time to try a husband-and-wife Presidential pair, it's right after we gave this miserable father-and-son duo a try.

Her answer tonight was...not much to speak of, really. She wants to be judged on her merits, not because of her husband. It's a non-answer. But she still sold it, and I came away from the debate tonight thinking that this was pretty much a non-issue, something that won't stick in a general. Because even though I find her answer unsatisfying, she's probably right - I doubt most people will make the decision to vote for or against Hillary Clinton based on this question, and this is ultimately a symbolic point that lacks pragmatic implications. Should she win the nomination, voters in November will decide whether or not they care for the woman and her policies and select a president accordingly. She's already received the benefit of being a former First Lady - massive fame and notoriety. That's over...now it's up to whether or not she can out-argue Obama (and later, maybe Romney or McCain. Or, and I hope I'm wrong about this, Bloomberg.)

Otherwise, Obama barely made a dent. HilRod ably managed to shift most of the blame for Iraq on to Bush and paint herself as the dutiful public servant misled by an untrustworthy, unpredictable superior. Going so far as to call Bush "obsessed" with Iraq was a clever move. This isn't about her voting for war all the time, which she does. It's really about Bush's personal insanity. She has Obama speaking her language about the war, not the other way around.

This isn't entirely Clinton's doing. The way Wolf Blitzer phrased the questions started with some of her pre-assumptions, including that the Glorious Surge of Saint Petraeus was a grand idea that's working extremely well. But still, it helps her. Clinton's savvy enough in her evasiveness, Obama can't really find any daylight between their positions (even though I sense there would be a HUGE difference in the approach of an Obama or Clinton Administration). So he's reduced to making arguments that are essentially silly. "I'll be able to say to a Republican that I opposed the war all along, whereas she can only say that she opposes it now."

So maybe they won't call you a flip-flopper. But the Republicans will just come up with some other stupid chant for the yokels. That's what they always do, and it's how they win. And it's not like there'd be any lack of cheap ammunition against the first serious black presidential candidate among the mouth-breathers. The drawling simpletons in Dumbfuckistan already delight in calling him Barack HUSSEIN Obama and spreading gossip about him being a drug-dealing pimp. So what if he has a slightly better zinger than Hillary on one debate question? Is that really the best case he can make for himself?

Frozen Grand Central Station

This "mission" from Improv Everywhere is truly brilliant. Over 200 people freeze in place for five minutes in the middle of Grand Central Station. The crowd actually applauds when they unfreeze and go about their business:

Reaganitwits

Today's Mahalo Daily is an excellent rundown of last night's Republican debate. How many times could they possibly work the name of Saint Ronnie into a 90 minute broadcast? Let's watch:

Live From Mahalo HQ, it's GOP Liveblogging!

Brian and I will be liveblogging tonight's GOP debate in Simi Valley from Mahalo HQ in Santa Monica. Please join us for what's sure to be an invigorating discussion about how we need to kill a lot more foreigners while praying in school.

John McCain? Really?

I know the Repubs didn't exactly have a ton of inviting options this time around, but I have to say that I'm surprised to see John McCain their likely nominee. He won Florida tonight, which killed Rudy's chances and made it very difficult for Romney to bounce back. And Huckabee hasn't won a thing since the Iowa Caucus, which is itself only slightly more meaningful than winning the raffle at the Iowa State Fair.

I will say this for John McCain: he was the only one of the major Republican candidates who stood a chance (sorry Paulistas) that has consistently opposed torturing people. To my mind, understanding that it's wrong to kidnap people and subject them to torture is mandatory to be considered a sane human being, let alone be eligible for the presidency. So that means Romney, Giuliani, Huckabee, Tancredo, Hunter...they were all out of the running before any campaign could begin.

But how can anyone actually get excited of electing this dotty old warmonger? I mean, yes, he's a war hero, but honestly, being brave under fire and fiercely loyal to one's brothers-in-arms, commendable though these traits may be, has very little to do with being president. A president's actual job involves a lot of politicking and crisis management. Vision, leadership, steadfastness, savvy...all important qualities frequently invoked by politicians to make a case for their candidacy. Willing to take an unbelievable amount of shit for an unbelievably long amount of time for your country? Honorable...but I still don't think we should bomb Iran or overturn Roe v. Wade, thanks all the same.

I don't always agree with Barack Obama's positions (in fact, to be honest, I rarely agree whole-heartedly with Barack Obama's positions), but his essential argument for himself makes some sense to me. "I'm good with people, I represent a new generation of politicians who's not tied down by old rivalries and ways of doing things, and I'm ready to upend the way we think about running our federal government." What's McCain's argument? "I've always loved America, so make me President"? "Come on, you guys, it's my turn"? Or there's always Joe Scarborough's suggestion:

"Less jobs, more war"

I Say, I Say, Now See Here, Boy...

I liveblogged Bush's State of the Union speech, so I could provide a response to what he said...but he didn't really say anything. At least, he didn't say anything he hasn't said pretty much every day since 2003. Watching it was like being transported through time...Freedom is on the march! No Child Left Behind is a rousing success! Upper-class tax cuts are necessary to give our economy a boost! I can't imagine even someone as deranged as George W. believes that this warmed-over dross would still be inspiring in 2008, so maybe he was going for some sentimental value? Hoping we'd remember the good times, even though there haven't been any since he wrestled control of the ship of state and sent it careening into a rapidly-dissolving iceberg? Some new kind of nostalgia, perhaps? Shitstalgia?

Anyway, to my mind, the biggest political story of the young year isn't Bush's latest speech or even Teddy K's endorsement of Barack Obama. It's the sad loss of Fred Thompson from our Presidential race.

Naturally, I do not want Fred Thompson to be President. At all. In fact, except for Huckabee or Giuliani or Dick Cheney or George Bush getting elected again, that's pretty much the worst thing that could happen. But he had no chance of winning in a general and he's by far the most entertainingly ridiculous presidential candidate of our times. (And I'm including John Kerry, Michael Dukakis, Lyndon LaRouche, Ross Perot, Pat Paulsen and Alan Keyes here.)

Here's a clip of Fred begging an audience to applaud for him:



Here's Fred's really embarrassing "smackdown" of Michael Moore, essentially performing a ridiculous unfunny skit as an excuse to avoid having an actual debate about issues:



Now, Star Parker from the always-reliable Townhall.com is going to tell us why Fred had to drop out of the race...turns out, he's too liberal.

On the social agenda, the difference between Thompson and Mike Huckabee was palpable and significant. Huckabee understands that abortion, like the slavery issue years ago, is not a matter of constitutional nuance. It defines our core moral structure as a people and cannot be legal in a nation that exists "under God."

Wow...that is some vintage crazy...I'm intrigued how anti-abortion zealots can compare the legality of the procedure to both slavery and the Holocaust. Those things are both evil, but they're otherwise not very much alike. Can abortion be like both these institutions at once?

And what's with the "under God" thing? Star's aware that the Pledge of Allegiance is not actually part of the Constitution, yes? The Constitution uses the phrase "In the Year of Our Lord" but never once the word "God." Face. So, because we're not "a nation that exists under God," we don't have to listen to his opinion on reproductive rights. Thank God.

Having grown weary of making up some silly, factless analysis for why Fred Thompson had to drop out of the race, Star now relates blatant falsehoods about public opinion polls:

Polls show that public opinion on abortion is moving in the direction of Huckabee. Americans sense the need for moral leadership and it just wasn't there in Thompson's tepid social conservatism.

Except that, you know, it isn't. Here's USA Today:

The most basic truth is that three decades of debate have done virtually nothing to change public opinion on the central issue. Abortion is legal, and most Americans want to keep it so. Much as in 1975, only 18% of Americans would make abortion illegal in all circumstances, according to a Gallup Poll conducted in May. No matter how sincere and heartfelt the beliefs of abortion opponents, banning it or curtailing access still imposes one group's religious beliefs on other individuals.

Yeah, that link in that excerpt is to an actual Gallup poll that actually says the opposite of what Star just said. She doesn't link to any polls. The page does, however, link to a site where I can buy a hilarious conservative T-shirt, perhaps advocating my love of firearms or Ronald Reagan's dessicated corpse.

Then Star rants about how Thompson didn't want to cheat Americans out of Social Security benefits and health care enough, even comparing him to (gasp!) Barack Obama, whose agenda presumably consists of drinking the blood of every last wealthy white American while showering newly-arrived illegal immigrants with jewel-encrusted scepters.

And then there is the moral issue that free people in a free country should not have their income confiscated because politicians have concluded that they can't take care of themselves. Shouldn't you at least have a choice?

So, she starts by talking about how we're a nation "under God," and finishing by calling Universal Health Care immoral? It's just...really unthinkable to me that anyone could hold these two thoughts in their head at the same time. "I'm a good God-fearing Christian. FUCK THOSE POOR PEOPLE!" It's like being a married bachelor. I'm pretty sure Jesus was in favor of universal health care.

Not long ago, when the Republican Party was an exciting place to be (remember the "ownership society"?), transforming Social Security to an ownership system was one of the important pillars of reforms being put forward to address causes rather than symptoms of our nation's growing problems.

There were people actually EXCITED about that ownership society bullshit? Man, nerding out about senseless GOP rhetoric is more lame than being heavily into fanfic. I'd rather obsess about "Battlestar" slash than some random, half-decade-old Cato Institute crap.

If Republicans are to again capture the high ground in the battle for leadership of this country, it must be understood that the failure of the Thompson candidacy was as much substance as style.

As in, he has no substance? I think I might actually agree with this sentence...Amazing.

Movie I Watched This Week

Bunch of stuff I didn't get around to reviewing. Here's a quick round-up.

Rambo

Stallone's update/farewell of his most beloved, legendary franchise, Rocky Balboa tried to pretend all the silly, cartoonish sequels never happened and return to the plain-spoken sincerity of the original film. I figured he'd probably do the same thing with his John Rambo character - return to the melancholy grit of First Blood and banish all that nonsense about traipsing around Afghanistan out of the canon.

But the new Rambo feels just as cartoonish as Rambo III ("Rambo Goes Mujahideen!"). And because, like Rambo the Third, it's also about Rambo intervening in a real life war, so it's just as inappropriate.

Did I say the film was inappropriate? Well, I'm going to say it a few more times. Because Stallone's set the film in the genuinely war-torn nation of Burma and demonstrates a Gibsonian tendency to linger on and fetishize abhorrent, disgusting images of brutal violence. I may have seen a few more movies that contain more close-up shots of individual acts of violence than Rambo (Ichi the Killer?), but I can't easily recall the last film that had this amount of violence against children or this many bodies exploding.

Rambo, who now operates a boat-and-snake-hunting service in Thailand, is hired by some naive but well-meaning missionaries, including Rita from "Dexter" (Julie Benz), to take them into Burma to help some oppressed villagers. He doesn't want to, but Rita from "Dexter" is persuasive. These scenes feature intensely cornball dialogue. Rocky Balboa, by virtue of being something of a likable simpleton, can sometimes deliver a line that would sound ridiculous coming out of the mouth of any other sane human. But Stallone kind of writes every character like he or she is Rocky; everything's folksy, sentimental, mawkish and utterly sincere.

Once we arrive in Burma, the movie is essentially a carnage promo reel. Think "Satan's Screen Saver." The Burmese army enters villages, rapes women and children, and generally just turns every living thing into CG-enhanced red goo, much of which is splattered directly into the camera. Then we get some scenes of Rambo laying waste to the bad guys, and then the film's over.



Stallone's obviously been watching his directors for his entire career, and he definitely knows his way around an action scene. (He's a bit klutzy with CGI, particularly when using it to show us grenades exploding peaceful villagers in close-up). The final showdown in the film can't help but remind older viewers of the heydey of '80s action, when almost every film concluded with a massive, explosion-heavy, machine gun-enhanced faceoff between the forces of good and evil. Many of these films were even set in Asian jungles! It's exciting and even "fun" on that level; it's hard not to root for Rambo when he's doing that snarly yell thing while pumping lead into 50+ dudes at once.

But I can't really put any kind of stamp of approval on such a simple-minded and inappropriate (there's that word again) appropriation of a real-life conflict. People are actually being murdered every day by a repressive regime in Burma. Is a massacre across the world really an ideal subject for a silly, simple-minded action movie? When Paul Verhoeven makes a movie in which a guy explodes thousands of people for fun, he at least has the taste to set it in space or Nazi Germany.

Teeth

Teeth has exactly one joke. One. If you think the very notion of a woman with teeth in her vagina, that she can use to defend herself from rapists and perverts, is funny, you will love this movie. I probably would have fallen into this category for the vast majority of my teen years, particularly those teen years before I had actually seen or interacted with vaginas. (Which was, let's be honest, most of them).

Because I wasn't laughing hysterically at all the talk of pee-pees and hoo-hoos, Mitchell Lichtenstein's debut feature grew old pretty quick. Unsure if it's supposed to be a send-up of teen abstinence education, a gross-out comedy/horror midnight movie or a cerebral Cronenberg-style mindfuck, it is none of these things. It's really not much of a feature at all; more like a series of sequences in which Dawn (Jess Weixler) encounters a man, slowly begins to trust him, and eventually cuts off his penis with her vagina.



Audiences likely to be pleased at the sight of a severed penis on screen, naturally, will find a lot to like about Teeth. It may have the highest severed-penis-count of any American film ever made. I'm not saying you couldn't make a good movie which featured numerous loving close-ups on severed penises, but I am saying that you've got to give me something else aside from the mutilated gonads. The movie's just not funny enough to be a comedy, not clever enough to be a satire, not scary enough to be a horror movie, and doesn't bring any kind of original insight into the already-warmed-over subject of the vagina dentata. So it's reduced to, essentially, the level of schtick. "How will this guy's penis get cut off?"

It's a shame, because Jess Weixler gives a way better performance than the movie deserves. She was so good in the opening sequences, in which Dawn's firmly-held (huh huh) belief in abstinence is challenged by the arrival of a cute young Christian named Tobey (Hale Appleman), I wish Lichtenstein had just made this movie (sort of like Election but with virgins) instead of all the adolescent vag humor.

Otto Preminger Films

Went last night to the Egyptian to see a double-feature of Otto Preminger films: Bunny Lake is Missing and The 13th Letter. In between the two features, Foster Hirsch interviewed Bunny Lake is Missing star Carol Lynley in a showing of pompous asskissery worthy of James Lipton himself. Hirsch is an esteemed author and film professor, but honestly, this was among the most vacuous "Q&A" sessions I have ever attended. He's written an entire book on Preminger, yet his insights made me want to smack my forehead in the exaggerated style of a Tex Avery wolf, each and every time.

In one scene of Bunny Lake, a TV in a pub is playing a performance from psychedelic '60s favorites The Zombies, and Hirsch pointed out that "all the customers in the pub...look like zombies." Um, no they don't, they look like customers in a pub. This is the exact kind of thing I used to hate in film classes. Stupid, "pithy" little observations that don't provide any kind of real insight into the film or filmmaker and serve only to call attention to the observer's cleverness.

He also referred to the second film, the well-shot and acted but ultimately forgettable The 13th Letter, as a film noir even though it demonstrates not one of the genre's defining characteristics. A melodrama set in a small village mainly shot amidst bright afternoons starring a wholesome and stalwart doctor defending his good name from letters that besmirch his reputation? How is that film noir?

But enough about this guy.

Bunny Lake is Missing is brilliantly shot and amazing for about 90 minutes. According to Hirsch, Preminger hated the original ending of the novel on which it's based, and it took him 10 years to get the new ending right. (Hirsch never told us how the book ends, however. He must be some great professor.) Anyway, Preminger never did get that ending right.

Ann (Lynley) and her daughter Bunny have just arrived in London and moved into their new flat. Ann drops Bunny of at school in the morning, begins unpacking and running some errands, but when she goes to pick the child up, no one has seen her. Ann's brother (Keir Dullea) and a police inspector (Laurence Olivier) are called in, but strangely, there seems to be no record whatsoever of the child's existence at all. Is Ann insane? Did she invent Bunny? Or is someone trying to make it look that way?

It seems like a few movies have used this same kind of set-up, and none of them ever figures out how to make it work. Flightplan recently used the gimmick and its ending was an epic disaster. Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes is similar as well, and though it fares better than Flightplan, I still wouldn't rank it with The Master's better work.

Still, it's intriguing for the vast majority of Bunny Lake, as the mysteries begin to pile up and The Inspector begins to scrutinize the odd behavior of Ann and her brother.



Preminger has set the film in a London that's spectacularly creepy and unsettling. Everyone has an unctuous manner, a bad attitude. The men are smarmy and the woman are cold. Preminger used actual locations, not sets, and he and cinematographer Denys Coop delight in lighting and exploring peculiar cavernous as Ann continues her relentless search for Bunny. Two sequences in particular stand out: Ann's fleet escape from a dank, factory-like hospital and her search through a doll "hospital" for tangible proof of Bunny's corporeal existence.

So the movie's not Laura or Angel Face, but it's still incredibly solid. Terrific, even, until that ending, which somewhat resembles classic '60s thrillers like Psycho or Peeping Tom but just lands with a thud. Probably because it doesn't fit with the rest of the film. Or maybe because it makes no sense and is stupid.