Hard Candy

Movies about pedophiles or potential pedophiles really need to stop using Little Red Riding Hood allusions. It's played, folks. Totally played. Yeah, we get it, she's a little girl being lured by a predator into a bed. Ooooohhhh, you're so clever to have thought up that incredibly blatant metaphor for sexual molestation!

The 2004 film The Woodsman starred Kevin Bacon as a pedophile attempting to reform his ways following a prison stint, and its title references the somewhat obscure conclusion to the Red Riding Hood Legend, in which a local lumberjack cuts open the Wolf's stomach to release Red and her grandmother, unharmed. The twisted morality tale Hard Candy inverts the legend, ending with an image of a girl in a red hooded sweatshirt skipping merrily away from the Big Bad Wolf's home.

It's a disappointing ending on several levels. Following up a film that, for all its faults, is ceaselessly inventive and sharp, it feels cloying and obvious. Cinematically, it doesn't really link up with the attitude of the rest of the film, which isn't so much about innocence betrayed as it is about karmic justice. But most importantly, it's just kind of sick and inappropriate. A movie without any acts of heroism falls back on comic book cliche - evil is punished, good wins the day, Little Red Riding Hood and Granny escape the haunted woods with the help of Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs, the music swells and we fade out into the sunset.



Sick is definitely an adjective that applies to Hard Candy. At times, it's intentionally off-putting and difficult to stomach. This is basically an exploitation/shock film dressed up as an indie thriller, a harsh revenge film of the kind that once played on 42nd Street.

The extremes aren't so much about testing the limits of common decency, as they are in the films of Takashi Miike. Nor are the shock sequences about challenging an audience to tolerate the sort of brutal depravity that goes on in reality every day, as they are in the films of Gaspar Noe (like Irreversible). This is straight-up cult film stuff, the kind of movie that in one swift transition offers the audience an implicit dare - are you curious enough to tolerate the next hour of cruelty and horror?

Admittedly, the performances and production values are significantly higher on Hard Candy than, say, Hot Spur, Fight for Your Life or Mantis in Lace. Writer Brian Nelson and director David Slade have turned in a film that's so polished, so smooth and so clever that you almost want to forgive it for revelling in the most debased sort of material possible and arriving at a conclusion that's as wrong-headed as it is cynical. Almost.

The screen is entirely taken up by a computer screen as two people chat online. It's a 14 year old girl and a man, presumably a good deal older. They arrange a meeting at a nearby coffee shop. Hayley (Ellen Page) is so precocious and yet so incredibly naive, Jeff (Patrick Wilson) ought to sense trouble wright away. But he's captivated by her. She's clearly smarter than most girls her age, and somehow adult beyond her years. He pretends to defer, but soon enough allows Hayley to convince him to go back to his apartment.

Once there, everything changes. As so often happens with Internet hook-ups, neither Hayley nor Jeff are the people they pretended to be in chat, and reality is about to come crashing down on Jeff's technology-aided fantasy in the form of one sadistic, vengeful little girl.

The notion of indulging in one's forbidden fantasies comes up frequently in Hard Candy. Though he protests his innocence of the worst of the crimes Hayley mentions, Jeff's clearly in this predicament in the first place because he felt the need to seduce an underage girl. The fact that he has fantasized about children sexually in the first place, by Hayley's logic, pretty much opens him up for any punishment that she could possibly dish out. The movie tests this scenario out in a few ways, and alwasy returns to the same conclusion...That nothing Hayley could do to Jeff could possibly equal the evils that Jeff has committed in his own life.

This very well may be true The movie's never exactly clear, there are no flashbacks or any information about events that happened before the actual film takes place. But isn't Hayley just fulfilling some fantasy of her own? The fantasy of visiting crimes back on the criminals? Is vigilantism justifiable, even if it's in direct response to a grave misdeed?

Slade's direction makes it difficult to argue otherwise. He frequently pulls tricks out of the Hitchcock playbook, often with great success, but always in the aid of Hayley's mission. Long monologues and sequences shot in tight close-ups don't just introduce and repeat gruesome unpleasantness but begin to wallow in it to a distasteful degree. Hayley doesn't just describe her nefarious plans for Jeff. She lays them out in loving, exacting detail. She offers diagrams when needed. She picks music and photos appropriate to the occasion. She gets off on making Jeff suffer, just as Slade gets off on tormenting his audience.

(This isn't neccessarily always a bad thing. Hitchcock clearly got off in some ways on tormenting his audience with tension, although that was always in the service of entertainment. Hitch hated actual violence and realistic movie violence, preferring the fantasy of "a delightful little murder" in the classic British style.)

A lot of this material works, at least on a pure filmmaking level, because of the strength of these two performances. As Jeff, Patrick Wilson pulls off easy charm in the beginning and then continues ratching up the panic and anxiety as his dire fate comes into closer relief. It's a really physical performance (he's bound to a chair for the majority of the movie), at times something of a high-wire act, and he never once falters. Even more impressive is young Ellen Page, who clearly has a future ahead of her in this field. Wilson's transition is well-done, but he's got nothing on Page, who smoothy navigates from precocious teen into steely psycho without noticably altering her personality. The way she brings out Hayley's goofy side initially and then slowly reveals the dark, calculating menace beneath is masterful.

But these carefully-crafted performances are in the service of a seriously twisted little film. Will Hayley be found out? Will she be unable to finish her nasty business? These scenes aren't based around the threat of Hayley being caught, mind you, of her being punished for punishing others. It's only based on the threat that she'll be stopped before she's done torturing some guy. Now, I'm sorry, but no matter how bad that guy's sin, I'm not certain it's wise for a film to actively side with a torturer in this way.

Really, for all its aesthetic trappings and excess of style, ins't the entire film Hard Candy kind of a juvenile fantasy itself? In reality, child molesters and rapists and killers get away with it every single day, and there are no Hayleys or superheroes to go around town and manufacture justice. Movies like Daredevil give us flights of fancy about supermen who bounce around imaginary cityscapes in nifty costumes battling evil and rescuing damsels in distress, but at least those kinds of movies openly flaunt their escapist phoniness. Hard Candy seems to desire relevance in the real world, when all it has to offer is a lot of flourishes on top of a bitter, angry and intensely ugly allegory in praise of torture.

Hey, I mean, it's not always the right choice, but if it gets the job done...

I'd talk more about the filmmaking, which is impressive across the board, but I don't want to risk giving away any more of the story than neccessary. If you're going to force yourself through Hard Candy, you may as well see it as intended with the surprises intact. You've been warned. It's tough to get through.

SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT

To make this last point, I'll have to discuss a major plot point of Hard Candy that you shouldn't know before you see the movie. Stop reading if you plan to see Hard Candy and haven't yet.

Okay, the movie lost me with the castration stuff. Not because I can't handle a movie about a guy getting his balls cut off. I've seen disgusting castration scenes in movies before, believe it or not, as well as disgusting scenes of men getting their penises sliced off or penetrated by fish hooks. I can handle it. But the castration plot in this movie is just perverse, with all that build-up and then the cop-out at the end. Goddammit, if you're going to have me sit through 30 minutes of your character lovingly describing how she's going to castrate a guy, shaving his privates and freezing them with ice and promising over and over again that this is going to happen, and then actually enacting the surgery, you've got to cut that guy's balls off for real. Let's stop fucking around, okay? It's for directors with no balls.

Also, I bet Nelson and Slade thought that was a feminist little twist to throw in the movie. "Hey, this guy likes to fuck little girls? Well a little girl is gonna castrate that guy! Bwa ha ha!" But really, this plays into the #1 classic feminist stereotype of all time. What do we say about prototypical angry feminists? That they are castrating little bitches! I mean, come on. Feminists don't really want to cut your balls off, guys. They just want to be treated as equal human beings even though they have different plumbing than you do. Get over yourselves.

The Black Dahlia

Though Chicago or New York probably provide the setting for the majority of American noir films, it's really Los Angeles that best embodies the genre's essence. The nation's most glamorous metropolis, and it's youngest, L.A. would intuitively have the most seedy underbelly.

Roman Polanski's Chinatown, in many ways the ultimate L.A. noir, imagines a city famous for its grandiose lies that's built on even larger lies. No matter how devious the imagination of a filmmaker, there's always some true crime in the city's past, some barely-whispered scandal, that plumbs even further depths of humman suffering and cruelty.

Novelist James Ellroy, whose mother was murdered here long ago, has spent the better part of his career fictionalizing the outrageous crimes and shady dealings dotting the history of Los Angeles. The previous major adaptation of his work, Curtis Hanson's modern classic LA Confidential, took Ellroy's at times obsessive cataloguing of the LAPD police blotter and reworked it into an epic indictment of the ugliness behind the shiny, sunny exterior of the motion picture industry and the stars who fueled its image.

Such movies are built on a rather straightforward contradiction. The world sees Los Angeles as the Movie Capital, and thus ascribes to it all kinds of attractive and exciting qualities, but the truth is that this beauty was created through pain, greed, rape, addiction, perversity and murder. (For another terrific development of this idea, see Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which posits that even cartoons were built on a foundation of treachery and graft.)

One could almost argue that the glamour and the sleaze feed off one another - the grisly murder scenes, buried corpses and stolen wealth wouldn't seem as fascinating if they didn't involve showbiz types, and likewise the fast living, fame and money of Hollywood wouldn't be so exciting without partially-obscured mystery, scandal and danger.

Think Paris Hilton. Without her money, she'd just be another whore. Without her whorishness, she'd just be another dreary, bug-eyed rich girl.

Brian De Palma's latest Ellroy adaptation, the stylish and crafty Black Dahlia, departs from Hanson's birds-eye-view of corruption in the City of Angels to tell the L.A. story from a more personal angle. Rather than take in the full scope of '40s L.A., juxtaposing the poor immigrants who built the city with the moguls who run the studios, the hopeful starlets rushing out for screen tests with their unlucky counterparts undressing for johns in fetid motel rooms, De Palma uses the infamous Black Dahlia murder case to convey the experience of being a very small fish in the world's largest, scummiest pond.



Homicide detective Bucky Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) spends most of the film peering out of windows, grabbing quick glances around corners or peeking out from behind the steering wheels of parked cars. He and his partner, Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart), have been assigned the strange case of Elizabeth Short (Mia Kirshner), a wannabe actress found not just killed but hideously mutilated and disfigured.

This is a real unsolved murder case, and a rather fascinating one, but De Palma mainly uses it for background. The real focus remains on Bleichert himself, who begins the film finding happiness and friendship with his new partner (and one-time boxing rival) and his partner's wife, the fetching Kay Lake (Scarlett Johansson). Several strange and unsettling events, some of them set in motion by the murder of the girl who comes to be known as The Black Dahlia (after a recent film, The Blue Dahlia), give Bleichert insight into the reality behind his friend's perfect marriage and his own cozy position within the police department.

Ellroy has constructed the story in much the same way as LA Confidential, using real crimes and investigations as a structure but keeping the emphasis on the personal experiences of LAPD detectives in the era. De Palma, accordingly, has gone to great lengths to get the period details correct. For the most part, he succeeds swimmingly. Dante Ferretti's sets evoke old Hollywood with remarkable luster. Everything's so manicured, so baroque, that it's unclear whether he means to recreate '40s Hollywood or a '40s Hollywood film. In the end, it hardly matters.

Mark Isham's score, though occasionally intrusive, ably mimics the overwrought, swelling anthems that highlighted old thrillers and melodramas. It's so on the nose, it caused some members of the audience to laugh at the obviousness of it all, but De Palma's clearly going for a traditional, old-fashioned Hollywood thing here, so such broad strokes can be forgiven.

Vilmos Zsigmond's cinematography is similarly a mixed bag. The camera work on display here rivals just about any De Palma effort, including one terrific traffic shot early on depicting a clash between Zoot Suits, police and sailors and an incredible crane shot that scales a building before twisting around behind it and eventually coming back down to Earth where it all began. Remarkable.

One scene, in which the detectives and Kay watch The Man Who Laughs in a theater, uses extreme lighting under Johansson's face as a portentious warning, which is a trick De Palma has lifted directly from movies of the '40s and '50s. It's a great little moment. Less successful is some of the lighting on individual scenes. An attempt has been made on some interior shots to give the movie a brown, muted look, possibly trying to get the color film to mimic the monochrome of a dark scene in black and white. Instead, the effect tends to make the film look flat and washed out. Again, some moments work great. Johansson, with her curled blonde locks, cigarette holder and beet-red nail polish, looks lifted off the poster for some old B picture with a name like Man Eater or Heat City.

De Palma returns frequently to first-person shots, giving the audience Bleichert's perspective. In one audacious scene, his superior at 1 Police Plaza, Ellis Loew (Patrick Fischler) towers over the camera, screeching directly into the lens. Often, De Palma switches to Bleichert's perspective when he's in trouble - during a shootout, when he's being lectured and, in a brilliant sequence, as he's forced to engage with the wealthy, snooty Linscott family at a dinner party.

Capturing Bleichert's perspective seems to be the sole aim of the film, which is odd for a police procedural about a real-life murder case. The only way to examine the meaning behind Los Angeles, the real TRUTH about this town, is to see it from the perspective of a lowly, meaningless individual. It's such a tangled mass of corruption, it can't be seen from above, only from within.

De Palma and screenwriter Josh Friedman spend so much time with Bleichert, Blanchard and Kay, establishing their relationships and the painful secrets that threaten their bonds, the film gets pretty distracted from the Dahlia murder itself. Coming largely in the film's final 30 minutes, the actual investigation could have provided enough rich material for an entirely different film. As it is, some of the connections come off as rushed and underdeveloped.

Hillary Swank gives the best performance in the film as heiress Madeline Linscott, who met Short at an underground lesbian club. (The speakeasy-style dyke bar provides De Palma with an excuse to provide Black Dahlia with a '40s style musical interlude, in this case a magnificently strange performance featuring K.D. Lang and a variety of androgynous dancers. This is the exact kind of touch that make De Palma movies so much damn fun.) Swank is actually sexy in this role, and I've never said that about her in a movie before, and there's just so much fertile material in the Linscott storyline and Madeline herself, it's really too bad De Palma waits so long to work them into the film.

Likewise, the figure of Short herself remains totally enigmatic. Seen in screen test footage and an erotic short made before her untimely demise, Short displays a tight, wounded pride as well a manic streak. Sure, she's a pathological liar. She claims to do a variety of accents and then clams up when pressed to actually display her talent. She emotes constantly except when delivering actual dialogue. But this is Hollywood! Such realities don't matter. Only your look, your spirit, your essence really matters. Everything else can be faked.

Short preens in front of the camera at her screen test, making faces and reciting dialogue from Gone With the Wind, but only becomes interesting when she's not performing, in the moments between the performance when she's speaking genuinely. When she stops talking about the possibly fictional lover whom she lost in the war, and turns on the charm for her script reading, it's both a funny transition and a little tragedy.

The implication is made that simply living with this understanding - that no one cares about the real when the lie sounds better - has driven all of these characters insane. It certainly drives Blanchard to the edge, the fact that he can't solve any crime in which he hasn't been implicated. No one can live with hiding the truth any more, but blurting it out would be too dangerous, so the entire city tip-toes around one another at all times.

And these aren't just the big lies - the bundles of $100 bills buried beneath the sink or the rotting, shoddy wood slipped into the gleaming new housing project beneath the Hollywoodland sign - but the interpersonal, everyday kind as well. Bucky Bleichert isn't taking down Mickey Cohen, he's not blowing the lid off of some marquee idol who killed her father when he got a little grabby with her.

He's just looking into a murder, a slaying of an unknown girl who never meant anything to anybody. It's clear that he and Blanchard relate to Elizabeth Short, who came to Los Angeles dreaming of stardom and discovered a monstrous city that swallows people whole and doesn't even leave a pretty corpse so they can have an open casket funeral. That's not just this one pathetic girl or these few detectives whose lives have lost meaning. It's everybody in LA, both then and now. (Well, okay, everybody except ten guys in big offices somewhere).

In one of the movie's most dryly funny scenes, Rose McGowan plays a background extra, one of the lucky ones, who vaguely knew the late Ms. Short. She gives her interview dressed in her most recent costume, a ridiculous Egyptian girl number, and has to take off before Bleichert's through with her because her ride arrives. It's a dusty pick-up truck with 10 girls, all dressed identically, piled into the back. "The truck doesn't wait," the girl explains. And that's the Los Angeles of Black Dahlia. It's a horrible place, when all is said and done, but when it calls for you...well, you really have no choice but to answer.

The Bro's Before Ho's Theorum

I always write "bros before hoes" when I write about this concept (frequently, as it turns out), and I realize this is incorrect. Hoes would imply garden hoes, not "pimps n' hos." But I don't know...Something about the word "ho's" as written just looks wrong to me, even with the apostrophe.

Anyway, Big Brother All-Stars ended last night with Mike Malin (a.k.a. Mike Boogie, a.k. Lance Showmance) winning the half-million dollar grand prize. Mike was half of the Chill Town alliance, essentially controlling the entire game from a little bit before the halfway point and onward. So it was only fair that one of the two would win.

I was more intrigued by the reaction after Mike's win than with the win itself. The other finalist, Erika, didn't really stand much of a chance in the final vote because she had not been a visible presence for most of the game. She was what's been called "a floater," someone who doesn't choose one particular alliance and play the game in a forthright fashion, but who floats behind the scenes and tries to align with whomever is in power.

As the game progressed, Mike and Erika began sleeping together (embarking on a "showmance"), and each then used his or her influence with the other to position or gain advantage in the game. This happens pretty much every season and is not, in and of itself, surprising.

What surprised me was the attitudes towards Erika, first from the vanquished male contestants on the jury (who vote to determine the game's winner) and then from my own male friends afterwards. It was fairly obvious for the entire season that Mike and Erika intended to use their showmance as a power play. Mike frequently bragged to the camera that Erika was going to be tremendously hurt by his actions, that she trusted him too much and that he was not growing emotionally attached to her in any way. Erika as well boasted about being "an honorary member of Chill Town," before turning on them right at the end of the game and getting Will kicked out of the Big Brother House.

So you have two people with similar strategies in the finals. One is clearly the winner, as he was overall a more successful and clever player, and is more popular among the former housemates. But the jury's reaction to Erika was astoundingly negative. She was a bitch, a liar and a floater. She was just looking to hook up with someone and rid his coattails to the end. She was, in every way, undeserving of the prize.

Danielle, one of the jury members and a contestant who had been screwed over by Erika during the game, pointed out that there was a double standard going on. Boogie lied to everyone and manipulated everyone, he hooked up with Erika to gain advantage, and yet he was lionized as a terrific player who made all the right moves. Erika lied to some housemates and manipulated eothers, she hooked up with Boogie to gain advantage, but she was a two-faced undeserving harpy.

Obviously, there were other factors going in to the jury's decision-making process. Will, the consummate manipulator, planted the idea that Erika threw the final competition in order to get rid of Janelle, hopefully throwing some votes behind his friend Mike.

Additionally, it is hard to overstate the iron-fisted grip in which Chill Town held on to power for this entire season. Without winning any actual competitions until near the end of the game, Mike and Will controlled just about every major decision in the house. Anyone voting based strictly on ability at playing Big Brother would have to award one of those two guys the prize.

But still...these men on the jury clearly were employing a double standard in making their decisions. James admitted to disliking the "floater" argument against Erika, because Big Brother as he said "is not a team sport" and everyone's in it for themselves, but he then implied that it was somehow shameful for Erika to win because of her relationship with Boogie.

Chicken George, who had no real stake in this decision one way or the other, said he suspected Erika's gameplay because he always saw her whispering in people's ears. But Mike's entire strategy was based on lies and distortions. Howie, however, the house's resident mook, proved the most interesting.

Howie had disliked Boogie for the entire game. Upon being kicked out of the house, he got into a loud argument with Mike. Yet he voted for him to win at the end. Why? Unfrotunately, he was not asked specifically to explain his vote.

Here's my theory...Howie had been upset with Mike for kicking him out of the house. He had hoped that the men of Chill Town would keep him and get rid of Erika that week because of the "bro's before ho's" concept. It did not work out this way. Hence his anger. He felt betrayed by the sacred brotherhood of Maleness.

So here's his quandary in the finals. He'd love to vote for someone else, to punish Mike for the act of betrayal. But the only other person to vote for...is a female! The only way he can punish those who violate the concept of putting bro's before ho's is to place a ho before a bro!

I'm being facetious, but only somewhat. I really do believe that this vote has revealed a subtle but persistant patriarchial assumption among the male population at large. A man who manipulates women is a player. A winner. A guy who knows how to get what he wants. But a woman who manipulates a man is a slutty whore.

Erika made it to the final two without ever really entering into a strong alliance. She had been nominated for eviction three times and managed to keep herself in the house until the very end. She won more competitions than anyone except the winner of the game and the nearly-unbeatable Janelle. And at the end, she got dissed and dismissed immediately as if her gameplay had been sub-par. She played better than almost anyone else there this season.

My other friends who watched the show didn't come away with this same reaction. Some felt that everyone voted for Mike and ganged up on Erika because Chill Town had clearly won the day and everyone wants to be aligned with the winners. To be one of the Kewl Kids. Others thought that it was Erika's unpleasant appearance and flat personality that turned everyone against her. I'm sure these factors played into it on some level.

But I can't shake the feeling that it's harder for a woman to seriously compete in Big Brother and survive with her reputation intact. And this, in turn, has a chilling effect on women contestants from the start of the game...They know that stuff like showmances and betrayals can come back and effect them in the finals in ways it would not matter for a man, so they are more hesitant to take certain risks. So considering that "Big Brother" is an interesting show as a sociological experiment, because so many of its observations can be applied to everyday life, what does this say about the role of women in modern America?

Maybe It's None of My Business, But You've Been Acting Psychotic Lately...What Gives?

Watch this video of the President lying to Matt Lauer.



Now I've always hated George W. Bush. From the very beginning. A useless heir to a vast fortune and a famous name, he squandered 40 years of his life before committing himself to ruining the lives of others. Particularly the less fortunate, the irreligious and the non-American.

But he used to be able to conduct himself in a somewhat rational, sensible manner. He used to be able to get through whole sentences while speaking. He used to have a kind of affable, snarky demeanor that Americans found appealing. (Not me, so much, but I could at least discern the source of his appeal.) Rememeber, during his first election, Americans pretty much agreed that, even if he didn't seem to bright, he was an everyday, relatable kind of guy. The sort of laid-back Texan you might want to go and get a beer with, if you liked beer, Texas and doofuses. And they all do kind of go together.

The guy in this video doesn't even seem like the same man. Our President has lost his mind.

It can't be easy to lie every day for over 5 years. Maybe he's just started to lose his grip on reality. Whatever the reason, he genuinely strikes me as an insane person in this video clip with Matt Lauer.

What's going on with NBC News these days? All of the sudden, it seems like a few of them are actually developing a spine. Keith Olbermann's been on fire lately on his MSNBC show, calling out Rumsfeld and Bush. Did you guys see this on 9/11?



Holy shit, a TV anchor just kicked the shit out of the President on the very first Patriot Day! That's nice to see.

And in that first clip, notice how Lauer actually challenges an assertion made by the President. Rather than just posing a difficult question and accepting any fool answer the President can think up, he then poses a follow-up question and refuses to allow Bush to change the subject or divert attention.

This is the best encounter I have seen with George Bush that doesn't involve Helen Thomas or Stephen Colbert. Not only can't our leader handle any kind of criticism or dissent (kind of an important quality in a President), he descends into a babbling, sneering maniac when challenged.

First, Lauer asks a reasonable question - "don't secret CIA prisons violate international law?" So the President does his usual tactic, deflecting the question by repeating one of his favorite meaningless axioms. "I'm keeping you safe, Matt," as if Matt Lauer's personal security and the human rights of Arabs are mutually exclusive. As Lauer continues to press him, Bush ceases to behave rationally. He's fundamentally incapable of going off of his script and just speaking.

He stutters. He repeats himself. ("We do not torture. I'm keeping you safe. The American people want me to keep you safe. But not to torture. We don't break the law. It's my job to keep everyone safe.") I was reminded of William H. Macy's scumbag in Fargo when he's being interviewed by Frances McDormand's detective. He knows that he needs to play it cool, so puts on a big fake smile and a false affability. But as soon as his facade is challenged, as soon as the questions get to difficult, he flips out and turns angry. He and Bush even resort to the same weak evasive maneuver. "Matt, I've already answered your question!"

When people say that in an argument, that they don't want to answer because they have already answered, 99% of the time they're full of shit.

Like Jerry Lundegaard, Bush seems to get personally offended, and even turns aggressive. For some reason, he and Lauer are standing in this clip while they converse, and the entire thing starts to seem more than a little bit confrontational.

Bush in this way is like any other bully. His only defense when his authority is challenged is to puff out his chest and try to intimidate his opponent. Finally, when all else fails, he dons his signature smirk, clearly forgetting that the issue of torture isn't supposed to be amusing.

What's with the smirking? Is it an unconscious habit, the only remaining evidence of his prior existance as a professional boozy journeyman fratboy? Or does he think it helps him deflect criticism. "Bush can't be too worried about this attack on his character. Look, he's smiling! He thinks it's funny!" I don't know, but smiling while a guy presses you about the potentially innocent detainees whose torture you authorized indicates a shocking, shocking lack of human feeling. We've got to get some Democrats elected in November, and then they have to collectively grow a pair and go after these people. I despair for the future of our nation.

Oh Thank Heaven, It's 9/11

Five years ago today, crazy cult members killed a few thousand people and, ever since that fateful morn, Americans have made exponentially less sense with each passing month. It's hard to write a 9/11 Commemoration post because my fellow citizens (and in some ways, myself) have dealt with the crisis so poorly. I'm always tempted to talk about the horrifically destructive aftermath of Osama bin Laden's attack, rather than the actual attack. The horrors visited around the globe because of 9/11 are still going on. 9/11 itself has already happened. It only lasted a few hours total.

I think we all need to suck it up and get over it. Accept that we're not 100% safe like we naively once thought, accept that they "got us," kick all these Republican cretins, weirdos, scumbags, criminals, embezzlers, perverts and totalitarians out of office (and King of the Cretins, Joe Lieberman) and get on with the business of exploiting half the world while selling our country slowly to China and Saudi Arabia.

9/11 was a horrible day. I recall it clearly. So clearly, in fact, that it's kind of amazing five years have already passed. I tutor kids who are 16 and 17 years old. For them, 9/11 is ancient history. Some stuff that happened when they were little that they vaguely recall, but that triggered all the events they have grown up with, particularly the Iraq War. Their Bush presidency was my Clinton presidency, the dominant event of their young adult lives. At three years and running, the Iraq War has been going on solidly throughout these kid's adolescences.

I, on the other hand, was doing very much what I am still doing on 9/11 - working some random job, living in some crummy apartment (Hollywood instead of Palms), watching a lot of movies and trying desperately to kickstart a writing career. My friend Aaron called me at around 6 am to inform me that New York was under attack. I ended up going to work that morning regardless, not knowing what else to do.

I think that's really the crux of why 9/11 was so terrifying to those of us who didn't lose someone. If your friend or family member died that day, okay, obviously it's horrible because of that tragedy. But for the rest of us, it was simply a shock to realize that we were this vulnerable. Modern Americans tend to prefer fighting our wars way the hell away from where we actually live. We're an intensely warlike people, but only if the actual war zone is, bare minimum, a 12 hour flight from America proper.

There simply wasn't a protocol in America for a terrorist action. None of us had any idea what to do or what to expect. It was, in every sense of the word, an unprecedented event. I immediately began to question how our dimwit President would play this event out, how he'd turn it cynically to his advantage. It's been far worse than I dared imagine that day. My friend and co-worker Steve suggested we should "drop a nuclear bomb on Saudi Arabia." He's got his finger on the pulse, I'll tell you that much.

In this way, it was a shared experience among Americans, which is what gives that imagery power to this very day. But far too often, Americans who were not directly impacted by 9/11 attempt to co-opt the tragedy, to make it their own in order to use it for cynical, agenda-pushing purposes.

The fact is, this is a tragic thing that happened to some of us. New Yorkers, people related to those killed in the Towers or the people on Flight 93, people in or around the Pentagon. That's about it. Everyone else, we were shocked, it was horrible, we felt badly, but that's about it. Life went on and continues to go on.

That's not being insensitive. That's being realistic. It's also the kind of attitude that's morally defeating to terrorists. They want to make Americans scared. That's the whole point. When we run around for years and years and years afterwards sobbing, building cheesy memorials, writing obnoxious country songs, burning Osama in effigy and staging candlelight vigils, making woefully ill-informed docudramas and obscene Hollywood recreations, and worst of all, starting ineffectual endless wars, we let guys like Osama bin Laden and other wacky cult members (white and Muslim) know that they can get to us. That we're open and willing to be terrified and to freak out when they attack us.

A better attitude is to let those who continue to grieve grieve, and for the rest of us...to get the fuck over it. Seriously. It's enough already. This thing happened. It was a-no good. Let's move on with our lives.

I like George Bush's holiday idea. Except let's not call it Patriot Day. Let's call it 9/11. And let's hold it on 9/11. Yeah, I know, 9/11 is already Moby's Birthday, but it can be two things at once. Every year, on this day, we'll remember to think for a few minutes about the tragedy and those who lost their lives that day. Maybe a moment of silence (at some hour when we're all awake). I'm not really sentimental in this way, but if it helps some people feel better, I'm all for it.

And then, the rest of the year, let's stop running around like frightened little children (what the Governator would charmingly call "girlie men") and problem solve. On his blog today, Andrew Sullivan seems to have the right idea. He's featuring all content intended to prove to terrorists that they don't frighten us. It's a big middle finger to al-Qaida, which is exactly the right attitude.

Not "let's go smoke 'em out of their holes." Not "Axis of Evil" and "evildoers" and "they hate us for our freedom." That's fearmongering. That makes people anticipate the worse and approach international relations with a sense of dread.

I'm thinking more like Al Pacino in Carlito's Way: "Who the fuck are you, al-Qaida? I should remember you? What, you think you like me? You ain't like me motherfucker, you a punk. I've been with made people, connected people. Who've you been with? Chain snatching, jive-ass, maricon motherfuckers. Why don't you get out of here and go snatch a purse?"

Unfortunately, as he tends to do, Sully goes and messes it all up by conflating the wacky cult members of al-Qaida with the Muslim community at large. Yes, many Muslims were upset by the Mohammad cartoons published in those European newspapers, and yes, many of them rioted in the streets. But that doesn't mean they are terrorists or our enemies. They're just dumb religious people.

Americans should totally understand what it's like to live in and amongst crazy religious idiots. We have hundreds of millions of them! I don't want to be judged by the actions of Jerry Falwell, David Koresh, Pat Robertson and all those Left Behind idiots, so let's not say that Teh Muslim is an enemy to goodness and freedom, okay?

I just...I want us to stop doing this all the time. I want us to stop focusing on this thing that happened five years ago and focus on the world of today, on the damage we've done to the planet in the time since al-Qaida did this one bad thing to us.

The number of American casualties in Iraq is 2,666 according to Antiwar.com. We usually think of the casualty rate for 9/11 as being 3,000, but it's actually a few hundred people fewer than that. Our "mission" overseas can be called, in strictly numerical terms, a tragedy on the same scale if you are feeling jingoistic and consider only American deaths. Obviously, if you're talking total human deaths, Iraq has been far more severe.

It wasn't all at once, in a shocking display of violent carnage, so it doesn't really have the same psychic impact. But there you have it. Al-Qaida is a villainous terrorist organization. It's their goal to slaughter, for the publicity and to influence world affairs. What's our excuse?

Oh, yeah, 9/11. So we have to invoke it constantly. Frankly, I think we've gone beyond cheapening anything that day might have stood for or meant. All the bravery and heroism of Americans that day (and it was considerable) has been forgotten amidst the gruesome campaigning of our President, who stood on the rubble a full three days later and repositioned 9/11 as a coronation moment for himself. The day he went from Boy to Boy-King. Arthur pulled a sword out of a stone, Doofus McPretzelgag grabbed a bullhorn and promised everyone in shouting distance that he'd catch the men responsible. One of many bullshit, unkept promises.

The Great New Wonderful

Post-Crash, we'll probably be seeing a lot more ensemble anthology-style dramas, in which unrelated characters conduct multiple, thematically-linked plots. Personally, I'm not a fan of the genre. For every Nashville, in which Robert Altman simultaneously tells dozens of humorous and intriguing stories, there's three or four movies like The Great New Wonderful, aimless mood pieces that impatiently flit between uninteresting half-thoughts in a desperate search for some kind of Universal Truth.

That's really the Big Lie about this kind of storytelling. Relating a string of unrelated, and unfortunately mundane, mini-stories over the course of a single film neccessarily implies that there is some kind of buried revelation to be gleaned. Watching these individuals work through their problems will lead us to an epiphany that can be applied not only to all the film's characters, but to everyday life as well.

It's the Raymond Carver school of storytelling. There's no time to delve into a lot of backstory or exposition. With five different characters to keep up with in 87 minutes, everyone's only given one basic conflict or scenario to work out. So small slices-of-life, moments taken out of context, have to stand in for the whole range of human experience. In the hands of an Altman, Michael Powell or, say, Max Ophuls, this kind of experiment can work out quite well, taking the viewer on an emotional journey of discovery in which seemingly disparate narratives congeal into one singular, and original, perspective. (Ophuls' La Ronde, regrettably not available on DVD, is one such masterpiece.)

Danny Leiner has already made one great film - Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle - so I suppose he has every reason to feel ambitious. But his direct-to-DVD disappointment The Great New Wonderful represents almost everything unpleasant and misguided about these kinds of treacly anthology dramas (TAD's). It's maudlin, undercooked, scattered and boring. That would all be bad enough, but Sam Catlin's woeful script makes the added mistake of tying his generic plot machinations to the September 11th attacks. Just as Catlin's characters must reassess their lives and find ways to evolve, so too must the city of New York heal itself from the wounds inflicted by those al-Qaida bastards.

Um, no, Danny. No. That's not gonna work for me.

Some of you may have noticed that I like Spike Lee's The 25th Hour, which does in fact do this veryt same thing (and much closer to the actual 9/11 tragedy than The Great New Wonderful), and may be thinking that I am a hypocrite. Please allow me to explain. 9/11 does not serve as a focal point for The 25th Hour. The film is set in New York, and Lee uses the remnants and evidence of 9/11 as yet another way of presenting life in his favorite city. The environment, the background, has changed slightly - now the Irish bars have tributes to dead firemen and the lavish penthouses overlook Ground Zero - but the lives of New Yorkers presses on.

The Great New Wonderful uses 9/11 to advance its rather simplistic theme. The World Trade Center is like a fucked up, confused person. Badly damaged and ready to topple over. But just like we went in and cleaned up the WTC site and are building a memorial, so too must a person pick themselves up and blah blah blah cut me a fucking break. Spike Lee's made some reductive, overly-simplistic films before (He Got Game?), but I don't think he's ever made anything that vapid.



There's just not enough time to tell five effective stories in an 87 minute movie. That's what all this boils down to. Crash, among its myriad failings, also suffered from a lack of development. 90 minutes is the average time for movies (or was before Peter Jackson lost his damn mind) for a really good reason. You need around that much time to establish characters, set an intricate plot in motion, devise a few interconnected subplots and develop a theme.

Why would anyone think that it's reasonable to try and do this five separate times all in one movie? It's a herculean task. For some reason, TAD's tend to attract first-time screenwriters. (Full disclosure: one of the first scripts I wrote, which I have never showed anyone, was a dreadful TAD set at UCLA in which one character was stuck in an elevator for the entire film). I don't know why someone who has never written a movie in which only one set of events occur would want to tackle six or more simultaneous events.

Perhaps because skipping around between stories sounds easier. You don't have to give any of the stories real depth or nuance, you don't have to come up with a full three-act strucutre for the narrative, and your characters don't have to be interesting enough to keep an audience's attention for 90 minutes. You can have mildly interesting stuff go on, but just keep everything in constant motion.

I have no idea. Anyway, it usually doesn't work, and The Great New Wonderful doesn't stand out in this regard.

The best of the stories stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as the rising star of New York's Designer Cake scene, who both resents and idolizes the Martha Stewart-esque Grand Dame of Cakery (Edie Falco). These two actresses get one scene together - a gossipy, catty run-in at a posh eatery - and it's by far the best moment in the movie. It has personality because the characters have an actual dynamic. They have so much in common and clearly enjoy one another, but they're also fiercely competitive and increasingly bitter as the excitement begins to fade from their high-stress profession. This is Falco's only scene in the film, and she brings more contradictions and intrigue to Safarah than the rest of the actors do with triple her screen time.

Just about every other scene falls flat on its ass. Catlin's dialogue fills the movie wall-to-wall. Characters are always talking about something, often little snippets of chatty small talk such as you would engage in with co-workers or fellow Moms watching their toddlers at the playground. These conversations are either dull or irritating.

Judy Greer plays Emme, the mother of a troubled, angry, mean-spirited fat boy named Charlie. She spends the entire film in her underwear arguing with her husband about their wayward son, but the conversations never go anywhere. Charlie's behavior remains enigmatic throughout the film, and when a peculiar school principal (Stephen Colbert, apparently instructed to turn off his generally spot-on comic timing for a dull supporting role) suggests that they simply send their child "away," it's not really all that surprising. The boy is never anything more than a pest. Why not remove him?

Other stories work themselves out in similarly neat, uninspired fashion. Judie (Olympia Dukakis) hates her husband's nightly routine of eating sandwiches, watching TV and then having a cigarette outside. So she considers cheating on him with another old fart. The talkative Avi (Naseeruddin Shah) bickers with his uptight friend Satish (Sharat Saxena) while they provide security for a visiting Indian diplomat, leading to an ambiguous and quite frankly baffling conclusion.

But the film's oddest tangent concerns Tony Shalhoub as an insane psychologist and Jim Gaffigan as his perplexed new patient. The dialogue here, as well as the moody score by Brett Boyett and John Swihart, has clearly been inspired by Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman's Being John Malkovich. Shalhoub confronts Gaffigan about his out-of-control anger, despite the patient's apparent ease, calm and rationality. Scenes between these two pop up throughout the film and follow the same pattern - Shalhoub throws out some nonsensical idea about Gaffigan's behavior, Gaffigan responds with surprise - and it's eventually quite irritating. These scenes, above all, could have used some actual comedy to keep things moving. Catlin and Leiner rely largely on their cast to spontaneously generate big laughs out of unfunny material, forgetting that Louis Pasteur debunked the concept of spontaneous generation back in 1859.

To his credit, Leiner doesn't forcibly connect the dots, spelling out precisely what his movie is "all about." In that way, it's a considerable improvement on Haggis' Crash, which so explicitly laid out his every last platform and deeply held political belief, you almost thought the guy was running for City Councilman. That movie's more sanctimonious than Hugh Hewitt liveblogging an interview of Billy Graham by Rush Limbaugh in the auditorium of Bob Jones University on the subject of "Girls Gone Wild" DVD's.

So, anyway, Leiner just feel the need to spell eveything out so blatantly, which does allow for a few well-played little moments here and there. Shalhoub makes an early prediction that comes true by the end of the movie, which Leiner confirms with a single, static shot that's perfectly timed. Shah and Saxena have a very natural give-and-take relationship, and theirs is a far more realistic depiction of male friendship than generally appears in films. Too bad their story doesnt' go anywhere at all.

And as I said before, that scene with Gyllenhaal and Falco is pretty terrific. I would watch an entire film about Falco's character.

But the movie's all sum, no parts. There are some essential grounding themes and some interesting enough ideas, but most of the movie consists of uninteresting, flat conversations. There's carefully realized dialogue and then there's just dithering around, waiting for a story to develop. The Great New Wonderful has its moments, but doesn't give you any good reason to stay tuned until they arrive.

What Are You Guys Doing for Patriot Day?

George Bush doesn't call himself "The Deciderer" just because he's certifiably insane! No, no! Sometimes, he actually makes important decisions. For example, he has decided to declare September 11th to be...PATRIOT DAY! Hell yeah. Don't wear purple pants after Patriot Day, that will be the new fashion credo.

Let me just be the first to say, thank you very much, Mr. President. Here I've been, trying to think of something to call that day five years ago when our nation was attacked...And I can't come up with anything. I'm really racking my brain here. Allah-ween? D-Day Part II: The Revenge? Osamadan?

If only there were some sort of accepted designation, some common reference, perhaps indicating the date of those tragic events, that we could all come together and use to refer to it publicly. Maybe something that also, coincidentally, played on popular lingo for an emergency.

Okay, I think that's just about enough sarcasm there...Well, maybe one more sentence...Okay, now it's ready.

Patriot Day, 2006
A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

Proclaim it, George! Testify! Can the President get a witness?

On the fifth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, we recall the fire and horror at the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field. America will always remember the thousands of innocent lives taken by the enemies of freedom that morning.

"And have you seen the movie version? It totally kicks ass! I've watched the DVD like four times already."

I don't get why this is "Patriot Day". Who's the titular patriot? Veterans Day honors veterans, Arbor Day honors trees, St. Lucifer's Day honors the Devil...Are we saying those that died in the September 11th attacks are "patriots"? They're victims, sure. I'm willing to go so far as to say "innocent victims." But patriots? Some of them weren't even Americans!

There is nothing inherently patriotic about being killed as part of a terrorist action. I'm not trying to say anything negative about the victims of the attack on the WTC or Flight 93 or anyone else who died that day. Horrible, tragic stuff. Slaughter. But if we're going to set aside a day to honor those we lost on 9/11, shouldn't that be clear in the name? Like by calling it...you know...9/11?

In the face of these unspeakable attacks, we were reminded that the great strength of America is found in the hearts and souls of our citizens. We witnessed firefighters, police officers, other public safety officials, and ordinary Americans demonstrate extraordinary courage, risking their lives to save innocent victims. We saw our country united in compassion as Americans came together to provide relief and bring hope to others.

It's rare that I'll read a paragraph nominally credited to our President and think, "yeah, I agree with that."

Today, America is fighting a war that is testing our Nation's resolve. We are once again answering history's call with confidence, and we know that freedom will prevail. Our brave men and women in uniform have stepped forward to fight our enemies abroad so that we do not have to face them here at home, and we are grateful for the courageous individuals bringing terrorists to justice around the world.

Man, V for Vendetta was spot-on. Have you guys all seen that yet? Want to have some fun? Replace the words "America" and "freedom" with "England" and you can make your own version of the insane propagandist from the film. It's like Christopher Hitchens Mad Libs!

We are also confronting the extremists in the great ideological struggle of the 21st century.

It's totally premature to start declaring any conflict "the great ideological struggle of the 21st Century." We're only a few years into the century. Maybe the greatest ideological struggle of this century will be between people who think sex robots are great and people who want to get rid of all the sex robots. Or between artificially-intelligent sex robots bent on world conquest that want exterminate the human race and artificially-intelligent sex robots bent on world conquest that want to keep humans alive as slaves, pets and potential hunting trophies.

Aside from the semantic argument, this quote does let you know essentially where George Bush's head is at in terms of the "War on Terrorism." He expects this thing to last the better part of the next 100 years. It's the great struggle of the next century! I mean, wow. That's quite a struggle. That's, like, the first stirrings of Communism to the fall of the Soviet Union kind of time there. And I, for one, salute our President's desire to drag us into an endless clash of civilizations.

Cause, you know, when Europe had that 100 Years' War, it worked out really well for all of them. And that was just the English and the French. They were already right next to each other! (Actually, that war lasted a bit longer than 100 years, which is exactly the kind of wiggle room George continually requests in his speeches. "We really turned a corner after that Battle of Azincourt. Trust me on this one.")

No, sir, no real end in sight for the War on Terra. And, you know, as long as we're at war, you know, Supreme Executive Power and all that...

September the 11th made clear that, in the long run, the only way to secure our Nation is to advance liberty and democracy as the great alternatives to repression and radicalism. By working together with our friends and allies, we are helping spread the blessings of freedom and laying the foundations of peace for generations to come.

Okay, this one's a bit harder to translate than that other paragraph, where all you had to do was replace a few works. This time, use this handy Bushian->English guide:

"secure our Nation" = "kick serious raghead ass"
"advance liberty" = "drop lots of bombs"
"democracy" = "ignore Israel while they drop lots of bombs"
"working together with our friends and allies" = "insulting the French"
"spread the blessings" = "torture"
"of freedom" = "potentially innocent guys"
"laying the foundations" = "preventing"
"of peace" = "any kind of progress"

It's a little tricky to pick up some of the idioms, but you can get the hang of Bush->English translation quickly if you pay attention. For example, if the President were to say,

"Isn't it a lovely afternoon? Would you join me for a glass of iced tea?"

...what he'd really be saying is...

"God told me to kill."

Actually, if you're ever in doubt as to what Bush is really trying to say, you should probably just assume it's some variation on "God told me to kill."

By a joint resolution approved December 18, 2001 (Public Law 107-89), the Congress has designated September 11 of each year as "Patriot Day."

But, wait...September 11th is already Moby's Birthday! It can't be two days! We'll just have to agree to make Patriot Day on September the 12th or something.

Well, if nothing else, at least now we'll get another three day weekend each year.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim September 11, 2006, as Patriot Day. I call upon the Governors of the United States and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, as well as appropriate officials of all units of government, to direct that the flag be flown at half staff on Patriot Day. I also call upon the people of the United States to observe Patriot Day with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and remembrance services, to display the flag at half staff from their homes on that day, and to observe a moment of silence beginning at 8:46 a.m. eastern daylight time to honor the innocent Americans and people from around the world who lost their lives as a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Wait, what? No long weekend? We just fly flags at half staff? That's it? That's your new holiday? I never thought I'd say this, but George Bush isn't thinking big enough. I mean, they fly flags at half staff at the schools when the janitor dies. This is almost 3,000 people here. I think, at the very least, we should have a half-day and an annual parade.

Or, failing that, some kind of fun new tradition. Like bobbing for apples, only something not already associated with Halloween. Oh, what about three legged racing! That's always fun. Each Patriot Day, families take a half day from work or school, go out on picnics and have traditional three-legged races to commemorate the Patriots who bravely crashed planes into buildings on September 11th.

No! Reverse that! To commemorate the Patriots who got crashed into by planes on September 11th. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Finally, I'd like to point out that it was very rude of the terrorists to attack America when it was still so early on the West Coast. How am I supposed to schedule a moment of silence before 6 a.m.? I mean, I'll be sleeping, so that's fairly silent (though I'm told I kind of snore.) But waking up to then just sit silently seems counter-productive. Would the victims of September 11th really want me to wake up and then sit silently in my bed, just to roll over a minute later and fall back to sleep? I'd like to think they'd just as soon have me sleep, so long as I promise to dream about blowing up Arabs.

Lucky Number Slevin

This is the second film star Josh Hartnett and director Paul McGuigan have made together. McGuigan, who broke on to the scene in Britain with the stylish dark comedy Gangster #1, made his American debut with a Chicago-set thriller named Wicker Park that no one, myself included, bothered to see. Lucky Number Slevin hopefully marks the end of the Hartnett-McGuigan collaborative efforts, not only because it is a bad film but because star and director seem perplexed, at times making totally different movies.

McGuigan's trying to turn in a mix between David Mamet, Tony Scott and Guy Ritchie, a sexy violent comedy-drama playing around with gangster movie cliches. Hartnett's performance just doesn't make any sense at all in this context. At first, his behavior just seems out of character. After a while, though, he actually begins to violate the entire concept behind the movie. He forgets he's playing the patsy in a "mistaken identity" thriller and starts to act like he's the heavy in a mean-spirited revenge film. Like a lot of story elements throughout Lucky Number Slevin, it makes no sense.



But I am getting ahead of myself. Hartnett's confused and confusing performance is a big problem, but not really the film's biggest problem. Really, I think two things just kill any chance Lucky Number Sleven would have as a viable piece of entertainment within the first 10 minutes:

(1) The script by Jason Smilovic is not particularly clever yet seems to find itself intensely clever.

We open with the mysterious Mr. Goodkat (a barely-there Bruce Willis) telling a story about a con known as the "Kansas City Shuffle." Now, all the "Kansas City Shuffle" really refers to is misdirection. Make a guy look one way, you look the other way.

Now, that is not exciting or insightful. Okay, any movie about any kind of con is going to, in some way, include misdirection. In fact, any kind of movie involving even a magic trick will involve misdirection. That's how you fool people, by making them look away at the crucial moment. Duh.

The movie, however, seems to treat Willis' insight as if it's the Holy Grail of all Criminal Insights. Smilovic's narrative is well-structured enough. He knows where the cool little flourishes and snappy bits of dialogue ought to go. He just can't actually come up with any. The dialogue reminded me of "Dawson's Creek." People talk fast and they seem to be "quipping" or doing some kind of repartee, but if you actually listen to their comments, nothing is particularly funny or droll. The best Smilovic can come up with in terms of clever little noir-isms is when Hartnett refers to a policeman on the beat as a "pigtail." Get it? A pig who's tailing him! Har!

Beyond just the quality of the writing, all of the details Smilovic has clearly included to make the movie memorable and fun just fall totally flat. The whole movie has an out-of-step, tone deaf feel to it, as if writer and director and actors just couldn't get together on what story they wanted to tell. Because the films various "bits" are not funny, and therefore don't work as jokes, they only serve to remove any sort of intensity or believability from the film's central narrative. Rather than an anarchic, zany good time, he's authored a grim, mean-spirited pseudo-noir that's burdened by a reliance on ludicrous cartoon logic. Which brings me to...

(2) The film hopes to get by on creativity while ignoring common sense.

Again, if the movie were funny, I'd be willing to overlook the fact that it's stupid and, eventually, completely pointless. But it's not funny. Strange, yes. Hard to believe, sure. But not funny.

Slevin (Hartnett) arrives at Nick's New York apartment to find his old friend inexplicably missing. Next door neighbor Lindsey (Lucy Liu) hasn't seen him in a few days. As it turns out, Nick's being pursued by not one but two different yet equally powerful underworld figures. The Boss (Morgan Freeman) and The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley) once were partners, but have since become enemies. Now, they occupy two identical buildings located on opposite sides of the same street, afraid to leave their penthouse enclaves for fear of what the other will do to them.

See what I mean about cartoon logic? In a hilarious satire of crime films, perhaps an audience could buy this scenario, with two crime lords facing one another across a street, terrified to move beyond the safety of their bullet-proof windows. But it's hard to take that situation seriously at face value. These two guys don't come off as imposing. They come off as wimps. A real tough guy crime boss would just send his goons across the street to take everyone out.

Anyway, both The Boss and The Rabbi think Slevin is Nick, and because Nick owes them money, therefore Slevin owes them money. He becomes an unwilling pawn in this somewhat deadly game of cat and mouse, all the while trying to solve the mystery of Nick's disappearance with the help of the chatty, ditzy Lindsey.

It's not funny, but I think it was supposed to be. Lots of scenes feature "banter," dialogue that exists for no other reason than to entertain but which generally doesn't make a lot of sense. For example, Freeman has a long monologue in his first scene about an old comic strip character named The Shmoo. Here's part of his actual speech, taken from an old description of the Shmoo from a Lil Abner comic:

The Shmoo first appeared in the strip in August 1948. According to Shmoo legend, the lovable creature laid eggs, gave milk and died of sheer esctasy when looked at with hunger. The Shmoo loved to be eaten and tasted like any food desired. Anything that delighted people delighted a Shmoo. Fry a Shmoo and it came out chicken. Broil it and it came out steak. Shmoo eyes made terrific suspender buttons. The hide of the Shmoo if cut thin made fine leather and if cut thick made the best lumber. Shmoo whiskers made splendid toothpicks. The Shmoo satisfied all the world's wants. You could never run out of Shmoon (plural of Shmoo) because they multiplied at such an incredible rate.

I'm guessing this is Smilovic's attempt to imitate Quentin Tarantino. A tough guy makes an abstract analogy to an old comic strip. That kind of mashing together of nerdy underground culture and gritty revenge film theatrics obviously recalls movies like Pulp Fiction or True Romance. Tarantino will sometimes throw in a cultural reference just for kicks (as in his added scene in Crimson Tide where Denzel discusses Silver Surfer comics with his men), but if he's writing an entire speech about some old character, there's probably a reason. Some kind of connection to what's really going on.

Now, I have thought about this for probably longer than I should, and I can't tell why the hell The Boss would be talking about The Shmoo. It makes no goddamn sense at all. If it were really funny, I would give it a pass. But it's not funny at all. Mainly, he's just quoting the original text description of The Shmoo from the comic book itself. Later on, Slevin will bring up the topic again, recalling the reference as if it now has significance in the story. But what significance does it have? How did this make it into the movie?

There's lots of incidental information like this, details that are thrown out but have no relevance to the main story and are entirely inscrutible. Early discussions about a horse race from 20 years before so clearly telescope the film's climax that I genuinely can't believe a veteran of several previous films like McGuigan didn't realize this during editing. Veteran actors like Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley and Stanley Tucci are shockingly wasted in dull, drab parts that are entirely beneath them. In fact, Lucy Liu's character is here only to provide a last-second twist switcheroo that might work as a cheap surprise if it were not so completely impossible.

SPOILER ALERT: I'm pretty much done the non-spoiler section of this review. Don't bother seeing this movie, it's lame. However, if you have already seen the movie, you may continue reading the part where I talk about what happens at the end.

In fact, the entire final 20 minutes of the movie makes no sense. It's not overly complicated, just in violation of all that we have seen in the opening hour of the film. We see Josh Hartnett's girlfriend cheating on him. We see him get on a plane to New York. We see him call his friend Nick and announce his intentions to stay with him for a while.

But then at the end of the film, it appears that the entire adventure has been a set-up, planned by Hartnett, from the very beginning. So he planned to find his girlfriend cheating on him? How did he do that? And why would he "call" his friend Nick? He doesn't really have a friend Nick! That's the whole idea at the end. So, I guess that scene didn't really happen? McGuigan's just showing us BS that's not real to keep us guessing? That's not actually a good way to build up any suspense. It's just a formula for making people feel cheated.

As for the Lucy Liu stuff, that's even more ridiculous. Even if you got her in a bulletproof vest on the right day that she was going to get shot, how could you be sure the killer wouldn't shoot her in the head? And how did they manage to achieve realistic blood spray? She had squibs set up with fake blood, ready to go, and just walked around like that the whole day? I mean, why even include this scene if you can't come up with a way to make it work?

END SPOILERS

Anyway, this one's pretty much a disaster from beginning to end. One of those movies that obviously just didn't click, but because everyone had already cashed those advance checks, the project just developed its own momentum. Better luck next time, McGuigan. Only, maybe forget about the Hartnett collaborations next time. He's just not up to it.

Best. Article. Ever.

Oh, God, I'm going to be late for work now because I have to post something about this article. I found it thanks to Attaturk at Rising Hegemon.

Here's the headline. It's unfortunate:

'Idol' singer Clay Aiken may serve Bush

Tee hee...

Clay Aiken is in line to be named to the President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, the White House said Wednesday.

Wait, does he have...Is he...I always thought he was just kind of slow.

Oh, wait, he's going to be on the Committee. He'll be helping out others with the intellectual and the disabilities. I must have misunderstood. Anyway, I can't think of anyone more qualified for an important position with the government than the King of bad dinner theater musicals, that Gay Guy who came in Second on "American Idol." Behind the Velvet Teddy Bear.

Aiken, a Raleigh native who gained fame as a runner-up on "American Idol," once worked as a YMCA counselor.

Hang on...That's not even fair...It's like the article's doing the jokes for me. Screw you, Associated Press, this is my bit...

The committee's Web site said it advises the president on issues pertaining to people with intellectual disabilities. The committee was established in 1961 by President John Kennedy as the President's Panel on Mental Retardation.
Can you imagine a meeting between Clay Aiken and President George W. Bush. Just think about it for a second. "American Idol" runner-up Clay Aiken...Illiterate cowboy doofus George W. Bush...Okay, now, do you want your brain to explode? Are you sure? Okay, so, imagine that there's a meeting between Clay Aiken and President George W. Bush and they're discussing...what to do about Mental Retardation!

Okay, okay...calm down...Is your mind still alright? No popped blood vessels. That's a near-fatal dose of irony you've just been administered. You may feel a little weak for a while, but you're going to be alright.

A White House press release said President Bush intends to make the appointment. Officials did not say when.

Hmm...When might this notable press-saturated event go down? I wonder...

The singer's new album, "A Thousand Different Ways," is due out later this month.

Oh. Probably then.

Anyway, I'd say this is definitely a President who has his priorities straight. Awarding meaningless ceremonial positions involving those with mental disabilities to pop singers as a way of promoting their new album/conferring upon you some measure of likability by proxy. Karl Rove, you is a genius!

If the Prez is looking to give some of Aiken's chart-toppers a listen before the big meeting (I'm sure he's super-duper-excited), might I recommend a little track called "If I Was Invisible." Mr. President, there's a secret message in this song...just for you...Can you guess what it is?

As for His Clayness, I mean, what can I say...Bravo, man...I wouldn't have thought it possible to be any more of a tool to the Establishment than being a runner-up on American Idol. But, congrats, man. You found a way...

Unintelligent Designs

I actually really honestly believe with the Krazy Kristians for once. Really. I can't believe it either.

Americans who question evolution are testing a new tactic in Ohio, arguing that schools should be required to discuss all controversial issues from creation to stem cell research and global warming.

In what critics on Wednesday called a new attempt to bring religion into the classroom, the Ohio State Board of Education will consider a proposal next week that would oblige schools to teach critical thinking in all subjects.

I noticed this article on Digby's blog, where blogger Poputonian referred to it witheringly as "lovely." I have to say, though it's obvious that these idiotic theocrats want to inject their silly, decidedly unscientific interpretation of Da Bible into our nation's classrooms, I dont' think the idea itself is so horrible.

I've been arguing on this blog for years about teaching "media literacy" to kids in school. All I really mean is "critical thinking" skills, the ability to look at information in context as a way to interpret it or judge its merit. We're all inundated by information constantly, particularly corporate media. I recently got into a conversation/argument with an old college friend on this very issue. I argued that everything we do in America today, every action we take, interfaces in some way with a corporation or corporate product. I think I'm right.

He offered having a bowel movement as something he does, on his own, independantly of corporate interference. While it's a bit gross, I went ahead with the thought experiment - the food he's, erm, "passing" was more than likely mass produced. My friend's not a vegan who only eats organic pesticide-free vegetables or anything. He'd been drinking domestic beer and eating, like, hot dogs and burgers all day.

You see my point. But people get lazy about paying attention to this stuff on a day-to-day level. We assume we hear things through the grapevine because they are true or because they represent what other random people without agendas think. I get customers in the store all the time asking me what movies to trent. Sometimes, they'll ask me what I personally liked, but just as often, they will say: "What's supposed to be good?" It's this whole notion of buzz...But where does that buzz come from? Movie magazines! Studio advertising! Websites paid for exclusively via movie advertisements!

I think we'd have a much calmer, saner populace that made more informed, measured decisions if only people understood how 21st Century communication technology functions and how information can be disseminated to the masses. And why anyone would have reason to do so. All of these ridiculous memes are just floating around out there - from "there's no such thing as global warming" to "socialized medicine doesn't work" to "unions are all corrupt and evil" to Iran poses an immediate threat to our national security" to "racial profiling works" - and they have no relation to reality. People just hear them and think, yeah, that must be right!

So, anyway, back to this article. The Krazy Kristians want to teach critical thinking skills, which works out really really poorly for them in the long run. It would, if taught correctly, encourage kids to consider the sources of information. So, let's take, just as an example, the evolution "debate." Entire world scientific community on the one hand, Krazy Kristians on the other. Guess what, guys? You lose that argument!

I don't think they really want kids to learn critical thinking skills at school. Let's face it, they want them to believe in Noah's Ark and dinosaurs living alongside human beings. Critical thinking skills are the last thing you want to foster. More like "continual drinking" skills. That would be helpful.

John West, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, which promotes the teaching of intelligent design, said the proposed new policy was "good pedagogy and good for students" because it would teach them how to sift and analyze evidence."

Students don't like to be told that there are some questions they don't have the right to raise."

Is this guy insane? Unless every teacher promises to teach this "class" with a strong pro-Bible bias, how will these kids come up with the conclusion that there's no evolution? Kids are kind of dumb, but they're not that dumb.

I get it, I get it, I really do. This will in an underhanded way force teachers to mention Creationism. Because how can you bring up this point, that you should analyze where the message comes from, without mentioning that there is this entirely alternative message that comes from a different source. That's just...say it with me now...strong cirtical thinking skills and media literacy.

But I still think it's the wrong approach if you want to teach kids that evolution is wrong. You don't want to encourage them to actually weigh evidence, you want to teach them to ignore evidence when it suits them. That's why I think it would be better to force kids to write essays about topics they know are wrong. See if they can contruct arguments for obvious crap by leaving out all the contradictory sources.

Kind of like a reverse book report. Like, "Johnny, I want you to discuss how Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird argues strongly for harsher punishments on black men convicted of touching white women. Be sure to include examples from the book that reflect Atticus Finch's deep-seated racism and justify the community's prejudce towards Boo Radley. Try to bring in other, like-minded examples, like Uncle Tom's Cabin and the works of Richard Wright."

"In 1984, George Orwell subverts expectations by telling the story entirely from the perspective of the heroic Big Brother, nobly sniffing out opposition and quashing it so as not to disrupt the peaceful serenity of day-to-day urban life. Support this contention using examples and quotations from the text."

"Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States introduced a new kind of American historiography. Finally, the perspective of rich white men was taken into account, with their particular struggles highlighted for the first time. Describe Zinn's depiction of hapless, put-upon whites, paying particular attention to the role of reverse-racism in keeping the Cracker Man down."

Write a couple of those papers, then you're ready to defend Creationism against all comers!

Clintoniana

Growing up as a child in the '80s, I had an extremely vague awareness of politics and current events. There was a show called "the news" and my parents would watch it from time to time, and typically very serious men were discussing something called "Iran Contra." I had no idea what this meant. I knew "contra" meant "against," so I figured Iran must be against something? But what? Us?

And if it just meant that Iran was against us, well, wasn't that kind of expected? I knew Libya was against us (from Back to the Future). I knew Russia was against us. And Iran was run by that insane-looking guy in the turban. Why not them, too?

Anyway, the point is, kids develop a kind of hazy understanding of what's going on in the world around them, but it's really up to parents or teachers or siblings or other adults to guide this understanding and form it into a worldview. I knew, for example, that Iran Contra was important, because it somehow meant that the President was a "bad guy," which is what my family clearly believed. Not a lot of big Gipper fans in my house growing up.

I found Reagan to be kind of a ridiculous character as a kid. This little old guy always going off about Star Wars and some Wall somewhere and claiming not to remember things. And when he was younger, he had co-starred in black and white movies with a chimp. But by the time his Vice President took over and I had started to think for myself, it was interesting to go back and take another look at those half-understood events of my childhood.

This is a roundabout way of getting to this fascinating conversation I had while tutoring yesterday. My student and I were going over SAT Essay prompts. These are always extremely vague because the emphasis is less about making strong arguments and more about having a well-written, organized impromptu essay. In fact, if a student can't come up with a really good example to back up his argument within the essay, we usually recommend that they just make stuff up.

Jonah Goldberg would do very well on the SAT essay section for this very reason. As lon gas you sound like you might know what you're talking about, you can get away with making any fool argument, regardless of the facts.

Anyway, this one prompt we went over asked the students (essentailly) this question:

Considering that others may model their own behavior on yours, is it important to always act in a proper manner?

So, anyway, the student then just has to determine whether or not they agree with the sentence, what a good thesis might be, and then a few examples that would really back up their thesis well. My student said he thought it was very important for adults to act as role models for the sake of children.

Okay...Sounds good so far. I asked him for an example.

"Well, President Clinton."

Um....

"He's supposed to be a leader and he's a role model for children, and he's showing everyone that adultery doesn't matter." (I'm paraphrasing here but that was the gist of it.)

Dear readers, this shocked me. I was shocked.

This guy is maybe 17 years old. He was a young child when the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal went down. So, clearly, someone has been filling his head with this stuff ever since then. His parents or teachers or someone has been railing about dirty old perverted Bill Clinton and the message has stuck.

Honestly, though, I can't believe that, out of all the people he could have chosen who poison the minds of our youth, he'd come up with Bill Clinton. Now, folks, I am not and was not a huge fan of Bill Clinton. He he seems like an intelligent, rational individual, so I think he was a better choice than Chimpface McRapture. But he was far too willing to sell out the people who supported him by moving to the right. I mean, NAFTA? Decimating the social safety net? Hillary's ridiculous heath care fiasco? Don't ask, don't tell? These are the acts of a Democratic liberal president?

But, I mean...the Oval Office blowjob? 10 years later, that's what still comes to this guy's mind when we talk about public disgraces and offensive behavior? And I don't want to get into this guy's life or anything, but his family is not wealthy. He goes to an LA public school, lives in a neighborhood of this city often associated with poverty and gang violence. He does not strike me as someone who hashad a lot of opportunities presented to him or has had a lot of help from anyone except his family. Yet this guy is smart. He's going to go to college. He's going to succeed.

It's amazing to me that he would be horrified and ashamed of the President getting some oral. I mean, if you want to hold a grudge against Bill Clinton (hey, maybe they're Republicans...), do it for the right reasons. "Bill Clinton was a bad role model for our youth because he pretended to care about the poor and then screwed them over when it was politically convenient." There you go. That's an essay I'd be proud to help out with.

But "Bill Clinton is a bad role model because he cheated on Hillary"? If every man who ever cheated on his wife ceased to be a good role model...well, there wouldn't very many good role models. There was a whole generation of kids that grew up worshipping John F. Kennedy...So, they're screwed.

It's like, Bill made some mistakes, he was weak, and now there's this massive American dogpile on top of him. Like that one sin revealed him as an inherently flawed character and now we can project all of our national shame and guilt on to this one figure.

Like that Disney-ABC 9/11 TV movie that's theoretically still coming on this weekend. Classic projection. "Bill Clinton let Osama bin Laden go!" Well, now, come on. There's only one President who really let Osama bin Laden go, and it wasn't Bill Clinton. Could his administration been smarter about finding terror cells? Possibly. But it wasn't Clinton's administration that ignored the "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the U.S." Presidential Daily Briefing. It wasn't Clinton who was already on the guy's trail in Afghanistan before turning around and blowing up Baghdad instead.

At least there's a specific political reason for this ABC docudrama. It's a big wet sloppy kiss to the party in power, in the hopes for more tax breaks and corporate handouts and deregulation strategies to come.

I can't understand why our citizenry continues to fret about a man cheating on his wife. I mean, it's unfortunate, but it happens. I can't believe it still makes Billy the least likable and respected man in America. I would have thought one name would spring to the mind of every American when asked..."should you watch how you behave in public"? Mel...Freakin'...Gibson...COME ON!

[UPDATE: It occurs to me that some of you may not know all the details about ABC's planned "Path to 9/11" movie, slated to run over two nights - September 10th and 11th. Part I deals with the Clinton Administration and its anti-terrorist activities (or lack thereof). Part II focuses on the Bush Administration.

I have not seen the film. But the word is that it distorts the truth about Clinton's pursuit of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, shifting the lion's share of the blame to his administration as opposed to Bush's. You can read more about it at any of the following excellent and CBI-approved links:

Think Progress: FBI Agent Who Consulted On Path to 9/11 Quit Halfway Through Because ‘They Were Making Things Up’

Editor & Publisher: Controversy Over 9/11 Film Hits Press

Here's the key quote from their story -

Mr. [Richard] Clarke, an on-air consultant to ABC News, said he was particularly shocked by a scene in which it seemed Clinton officials simply hung up the phone on an agent awaiting orders in the field. 'It's 180 degrees from what happened,' he said. 'So, yeah, I think you would have to describe that as deeply flawed.'"

ABC responded Tuesday with a statement saying that the miniseries was 'a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and from personal interviews.'"

Just like Godfrey Jones' popular show "Rock Bottom," ABC's miniseries should carry, as a public service, a brief spoken message: "Dramatization! May Not Have Happened!"

CQ.com: ABC Docudrama Sparks 9/11 Spat

That complaint came to the fore at a National Press Club screening of the show late last month, when Richard Ben-Veniste — one of the 10 members of the independent Sept. 11 commission, whose final report producer Marc Platt credits with supplying much of the mini-series’ detail and narrative structure — rose to denounce the veracity of a key scene involving Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. Berger.

Berger, portrayed as a pasty-faced time-server by Kevin Dunn (Col. Hicks in “Godzilla”) freezes in dithering apprehension when a manly and virtuous CIA agent played by Donnie Wahlberg radios in from the wilds of Afghanistan to say that he and his noble band of local tribesmen have Osama bin Laden within sight and begs for the green light to terminate him with extreme prejudice. In the film, the line goes dead before Berger offers any reply.

The moment is clearly intended to encapsulate the notion of American inattentiveness to the terror threat in the 1990s — a point driven home when the camera pans back to show Berger surrounded by a supporting cast of fellow Clinton administration nervous Nellies, including Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Defense Secretary William S. Cohen.

So when the post-screening question-and-answer session began, Ben-Veniste stood to say that the Berger-bashing scene didn’t square with the research he and the other commissioners conducted. “There was no incident like that in the film that we came across. I am disturbed by that aspect of it,” Ben-Veniste, a loyal Democrat, told the panel, which included both the producer and the commission’s GOP chairman, former Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey.

Also, please bear in mind that Scholastic is printing up study guides to be sent to high schools for free, encouraging teachers to use this "dramatization" as an educational tool.

You can tell this is one of those situations that Disney's PR Department didn't really anticipate. They're unprepared for this shitstorm and that's why it's going over so poorly. (Might there still be time to edit out the offensive scenes?) Some crisis management team is working around the clock trying to placate everybody, but this has just been a sloppy roll-out since day one. I mean, they sent copies to Rush Limbaugh for his examination, but not Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright? It's about them! Besides, Limbaugh only watches movies if they have "spank," "cumstain" or "Scary Movie" in the title...]

R.I.P. Crocodile Hunter

I have to say, I wasn't crazy about that name. "The Crocodile Hunter." He didn't "hunt" crocodiles. He followed them. There's a huge difference. In order to hunt, one must neccessarily follow an animal first. But it doesn't work the other way around. Just because you're following a crocodile with a video camera, possibly pointing out some of its significant features for educational purposes, that doesn't make you a hunter. But "The Crocodile Follower" isn't a particularly cool name. And "Crocodile Dundee" was already taken.

But anyway, a man is dead. A gregarious Australian man named Steve Irwin, whose wacky animal-harrassing antics delighted children and simpletons the world over.

I waited a few days to write a post about the passing of Croc King because I figured I would probably make some jokes at his expense. And one or two days just seemed a bit soon. (In fact, the Best Week Ever blog has a post up on this very topic...Are we allowed to laugh about the Crocodile Hunter yet? If not, when will be an appropriate time?)

I'm torn on this subject. On the one hand, this guy is dead and he had a family and I'm sure they're just crushed by this tragedy. Just because he made a living doing animal stunts and messing around with wildlife doesn't mean he deserved to die young.

However, I also understand that the best jokes are usually the ones we aren't supposed to make. Not much is surprising any more. We've crossed just about every boundary inumerable times at this point. Stand-up comics have covered every taboo. If you don't believe me, rent The Aristocrats. There's nothing so vulgar, disgusting or inappropriate as to be beneath Bob Saget. That guy's not just scraping the bottom of the barrell. He's tunnelled straight through barrell and deep within the Earth's molten core.

So what's left to shock people? Only a few things...The Holocaust. Still not really okay to laugh at that. Although Roberto Benigni figured out that if you just alternate between laughing at the Holocaust and being really maudlin about it, they'll give you a pity Oscar. Also, raping children. A few filmmakers have crossed this boundary, including Todd Solondz on multiple occasions, but it's usually more for satirical/social commentary purposes than out-and-out hilarity. I'd say this is next, though. Look for Will Ferrell to start making kiddie rape jokes any day now.

Finally, you get victims of recent tragedies. I think Ann Coulter made it official that we're allowed to make fun of 9/11 victims at this point. And it has been five years...That's only fair...Tsunami victims are probably the next group on the horizon as targets for comedy. I'd say that's any week now. Katrina...ooohhh, that's a bit soon.

And of course, this extends to tragic celebrity deaths. If a celebrity just dies of old age or something, fuck 'em, it's okay to start goofing ont hem immediately. But if it's tragic, like the Crocodile Hunter being viciously attacked by a massive, poisonous stingray, the conventional wisdom states that it's just not funny. (Also, the fact that he had a wife and two children makes it totally not funny.)

I mean, my joking about this subject on my little blog isn't going to make things any better or worse for the Irwin Family. Steve's dead, he can't really have his feelings hurt. I mean, life is harsh, people die every day, right? Why should this guy be so special just because he was on television and starred in a really, really, really, really bad movie? I mean, there's being sensitive, and then there's just being a buzzkill, keeping people from expressing themselves just because it's "not appropriate" or "insensitive."

I don't know. I probably should have waited to have a little fun with Steve Irwin for a few months at least. Instead, I waited a few days and then tried to get away with it by writing a meta-post about the act of making fun of dead celebrities. The only question is...did I just get away with it?