Christmastime for the Jews

Another classic SNL Christmas moment that I saw posted on Valleywag, of all places. Enjoy.

Favorite Songs of 2007, Part 4

[Read Parts 1, 2 and 3]

Neil Young, "Dirty Old Man"

I only liked about half of Neil's 2007 entry, Chrome Dreams II. This track sounds a lot like something he would have written 30 years ago. Lyrically, it's a lot like "Sedan Delivery" and "Welfare Mothers."

I could not find a single embeddable or direct link for this song. I guess Neil wants your 99 cents.

The New Pornographers, "Failsafe"

It was a toss-up between this track and "Myriad Harbor" from the New Pornos' "Challengers" record, but I went with this one because I love Neko Case's Kathryn Calder's vocals on it.



Of Montreal, "Gronlandic Edit"

I'll admit, some of the songs of this album were too far-out for me to get into. I admire what Kevin Barnes & Co. are going for...but it's not the sort of thing I'll listen to frequently. I listened to this song a shitload this year. It's like a Beck in full-on Prince mode, backed up by Hot Chip - weird, hypnotic and funky. Plus, you've got to love the line "physics makes us all its bitches."



Okkervil River, "Our Life Is Not a Movie Or Maybe"

This one kicks off The Stage Names with a bang. Not every band could pull off such a BIG, emotional gesture right up front and make it work, but as they did a few years back with Black Sheep Boy, Okkervil River has constructed a rock album that builds in dramatic intensity more like a rock opera. The Arcade Fire goes for the same kind of sweeping, epic scale in their music, and succeeded beautifully in Funeral a few years back, but Stage Names clearly outdid this year's A.F. entry, Neon Bible.



Panda Bear, "Good Girl/Carrots"

Holy shit. This song is a masterpiece. Almost 13 minutes long and every second is entrancing and vital. It may take a few listens to "get it," but once you're there...bliss.



Patrick Wolf, "Bluebells"

I love the use of fireworks sound effects in this song. Gives everything kind of a oddly nostalgic quality.



Photo Atlas, "Handshake Heart Attack"



The Ponys, "Poser Psychotic"

There's a lot less straight-up guitar rock on my Favorite Lists this year than in years past. Even an old fart like myself, who came of age when Grunge was King, has to admit that electronic music and hip-hop are changing the landscape of what's worth listening to. The Ponys, however, are keeping the old ways alive.



Professor Murder, "Flex-It Formula"

Radiohead, "Reckoner"

I love Radiohead. I love "In Rainbows." I love this song. That is all.



[The Favorite Song list concludes with Part 5 here!]

Do I Know It's Christmas?

Typically, this is about the time I would post some angry, curmudgeonly take on the Christmas season and piss off all the True Believers who stumble into my blog-space. In 2005, I wrote this post, "The 6 Types of Annoying Christmas Songs," a goofy little bit of business making fun of the severity or anachronism of most popular Christmas carols. I thought it was pretty lighthearted, but still received some strongly-worded rebukes in comments from Yuletide fans.

The best was from Webmastergo Dallas:

It's really too bad you're so sad. Calling you names (like a pit-dwelling grinch who's soul seems near dead) would serve no purpose and might almost surely fuel your WAY-MORE-than-cynical and hateful fire against things decent, peaceful and good, albeit agreed that in some cases antiquated (yet not irrelevant to many with joyful souls). Or you may actually enjoy such name-calling as vaildating a selected humanity-rebellion. The biggest wrong such name-calling will commit is to push you further away from the soul-saving subject-person of (and reason for) Christmas, the creator of the entire universe who unselfishly came to sacrifice himself for the likes of me and you.

Who knows if you're uncommonly financially wealthy and silver-spoon-life lived without compassion or any personal lack or struggle has utterly impoverished and jaded your spirit, with a "let em eat cake in hell" resultant attitude... or if you're just a raging semi-sociopath who from personal choice or lack of familial nurturing has grown into killjoy-jerkishness toward everyone else's happiness except your own. On top of it all you probably don't give a rat's tail WHAT anybody thinks. But just a parting tip as we ease into the joy of a season mostly celebrating Jesus Christ who LOVED YOU AND STILL LOVES YOU SO MUCH (and hopes you'll soon chill out and discover that truth ... before it's too late) -- GOD LOVES YOUUU DUDE!!! No matter who you are..what you've done.. who you've hurt..who's hurt you...GOD LOVES YOU.

I have no idea where he got the "uncommonly financially wealthy" "silver-spoon-life" thing...All I did was goof on some Christmas songs. I mean, my folks did alright, but I don't see what that has to do with anything.

Also, I object to being called a "pit-dwelling Grinch." I believe he lived on a high mountaintop overlooking Whoville, did he not? Insulting me is one thing, but I'll not have you misstate details from the beloved classics of Dr. Seuss.



Anyway, I'm not sure I really have it in my this year to do a caustic, anti-Christmas post. I feel like things have been more subdued this year (or maybe I've just been busier), and I've been less overwhelmed by holiday-themed nonsense than in years past. Is it because people are nervous about the economy and spending less on pointless crap they don't need? Or have I personally just been more preoccupied with my own shit and not paying attention to the usual full-on Shopping Orgy Experience?

So instead of ranting, enjoy Mark Jensen's Family Christmas:

The Not-Particularly-Great Debaters

Funny.

A Post About Watching Football? As a Couple?

Relax, it's just the setup for a new Mahalo Daily installment. I'm not going all Gridiron on you all of the sudden...Enjoy yours truly doing an excruciatingly poor Al Michaels voice AND SO MUCH MORE!

Favorite Songs of 2007, Part 3

[Read Part 1 and Part 2]

Interpol, "Heinrich Maneuver"

Interpol's second album, "Antics," was so boring and uninteresting to me, I thought maybe the mechanism in my brain that enjoyed Interpol had broken permanently. I listened to that album 3 or 4 times, and then pretty much never again. This year's "Our Love to Admire" fared far better, and this was my favorite track - it brings together everything the band does really well.



Iron and Wine, "Boy with a Coin"



Jay-Z, "Ignorant Shit"

The great thing about Jay-Z's soundtrack/album "American Gangster," which at this point I can safely say I prefer to the Ridley Scott film of the same name, was all the '70s samples. My favorite song from the album, "Ignorant Shit," borrows the same bit of the Isley Brothers' "Between the Sheets" as Biggie Smalls' "Big Poppa," invoking the memory of a patron saint of the genre and giving everything to come a feeling of significance. The opening, in which Hova wonders aloud why fans declare his party albums "genius" but can't be bothered with his more heady "Kingdom Come"-style endeavors, lays the foundation for a takedown of the culture of hip-hop and its politics that's both hilarious and insightful. I'm serious, there's a lot of interesting ideas packed into this 3 minutes and 44 seconds. I honestly can't BELIEVE Pitchfork chose a song from this album as it's Best of the Year and it WASN'T "Ignorant Shit." I like "Roc Boys" too, but...this one is clearly the highlight.



Kings of Leon, "Fans"

Hells yes.



Kanye West, "Can't Tell Me Nothing"

I swear, I'm not just picking this song so I can post this video. I really do like the song, even better than "Stronger":



Jesca Hoop, "Intelligentactile 101"

The first time I posted this song on here, I said I had no idea what it was about. But I've listened to it a lot more, and now I think I've got it. It's sung from the perspective of either (1) a fetus or (2) a soul floating around in space waiting to be placed inside a fetus, and it's about how the narrator is excited about being born. Maybe I've overthought it, but what can I say? This was one of those songs that wouldn't get out of my head this year.



The Light Footwork, "Rebellion Time"

I really like this band. This song is what Sufjan Stevens would sound like if he wrote songs instead of faux-symphonies. And had a girl with him. In other words, The Light Footwork would kick the White Stripes ass in team debate.



M.I.A., "Paper Planes"

This is an amazing song, both because I could listen to it 10,000 times without getting sick of it, and because it so boldly tells its audience what they don't want to hear. What could be a more direct response, in a year when so much of the world continues to recoil against the horror of IMMIGRANTS in their HOMELAND, than a woman flying the flag of "Third World Democracy" chanting "all I want to do is [bullet sounds] and take your money?" I'm going to go ahead and say, "nothing could be a more direct response than that."



Melody Function, "Anne Maria"

Just a great, loud, driving hard rock song. This is kind of a throwback to the early aughts when bands like The Strokes ruled the airwaves, and even though that "The Blanks" era has ended, this kind of simple pop song never really goes out of style. No embeddable copy, but you can download the song here at You Ain't No Picasso. That's where I found it, and a good deal of the other songs on these lists.

The National, "Mistaken for Strangers"

It was tough to pick just one National song for this list. There are at least 5 cuts from the album I could see putting on a Best 2007 Songs list.



[Continue with Part 4! Or skip to the end, Part 5!]

Crispin Glover Interview on Mahalo Daily!

Check this little slice of awesome out: Veronica Belmont's exclusive interview with auteur-author-musician-actor and all-around mack Crispin Glover:



I'm desperate to see the new film, It Is Fine, Everything Is Fine!. Missed it a few weeks ago at the Egyptian.

Atonement

I have heard that Ian McEwan is a terrific novelist, and I fully intend to one day get around to one of his books. But I can say, having seen two adaptations of McEwan novels, that they don't make the transition to the screen very well. Enduring Love was a navel-gazing mess of a movie. I wrote in my original review:

"I'd have preferred enduring just about any unpleasant activity over Enduring Love, an utterly joyless exercise that's as preposterous as it is dull. This is clearly a film that thinks it has something to say about the nature of love, but for the life of me I can't determine what that thing could possibly be."

And now we have Atonement, another film about the unbearable pain of an impossible love. It's fairly evident to me why Joe Wright's screen version (based on a script by Christopher Hampton, best known for writing Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liasons) doesn't work - everything revolves around an event that happens within the first 45 minutes or so of the movie. In a novel, characters can spent half a book reflecting upon something that has already happened. It's prose - the unfolding of events in some kind of synchronous order isn't required to maintain reader interest, so long as the writing itself is entertaining.

But in a narrative movie, you can't really have the crucial event go down at the end of the First Act and then whisk people away to other, less interesting action with zero stakes, populated by a bunch of strange new characters. Actually, "can't" is too strong a word here. I can think of several films that do, in fact, unfold in similar fashion to Atonement, in which an incident early on in the film inspires all the conversation and attention for the rest of the film. Even this year, No Country for Old Men spends its final half hour considering the action that has come before.

What I mean to say is that Atonement failed to keep my interest through its various time jumps and epilogues.



We open in an English manor in 1935. Young Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) lives with her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley, who starred in Wright's previous film, Pride and Prejudice) and mother Emily (Harriet Walter), along with a large staff of servants and their families. Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) is one such employee, working on the estate as a gardener and planning and future career as a doctor.

Briony, an imaginative girl with a bit of a crush on Robbie, sees something she should not and makes an ill-considered accusation. She winds up causing both Cecilia and Robbie a great deal of trouble, and their woes only increase with the onset of World War II.

After Briony's accusation is made and the consequences meted out, Wright's film jumps ahead five years. Briony (now played by Romola Garai) and Cecilia are now nurses working at a veteran's hospital, but they are not on speaking terms. (Briony, we come to understand, is tormented by guilt over her actions and obsessed with trying to set things right). Robbie is serving as a private in the Army, doomed to the lowest rung on the military ladder because of Briony's misdeed years before.

I'm still not really feeling Keira Knightley, I must say. In the past, I've said she wavers constantly between two modes - pouty/petulant, and headstrong. Here, she spends the first act in Mode One, and the remainder of the film in Mode Two. You can always tell when she's evoking steely resolve...because it's pretty much all she ever freaking evokes.

This is the third film I have seen starring James McAvoy, and I only know that because I have looked him up on IMDb. (He was Mr. Tumnus in Narnia and the star of Last King of Scotland.) How boring do you have to be to star in three films in as many years and still be such a nobody? THIS boring.

The rest of the cast is fine. Both Brionys, the younger and older incarnations, are terrific, and the transition from one to the other is seamless. Brenda Blethyn plays Robbie's mother, a servant in the Tellis household, and steals a few scenes. The camera work by Seamus McGarvey is also really solid, with some really nice use of muted colors. (There's one beautiful shot of a soldier walking in a field of tulips.) There's an impressive tracking shot that has to last a few minutes at least, in which McGarvey's camera tours around a French beach where thousands of British soldiers are waiting to board ships and head home, but it's also distracting and serves no real dramatic purpose in the movie. The transition from the story of intrigue at a British manor to a war movie is abrupt enough without long, graceful establishing shots setting off the pace and calling attention to themselves.

Like everything after the time jump in Atonement, the tracking shot would have more impact if there were some importance to it, some reason we had to see what's going on at this beach. Robbie spends the entire remainder of the film waiting to go home. Just sitting around, waiting, thinking about how he came to be in France. Cecilia spends her time waiting for Robbie to get back. Briony spends her time thinking about what she did, waiting to hear back from Cecilia to see whether or not she'll be forgiven. That's a lot of sitting around and waiting.

Vanessa Redgrave shows up and plays Briony as an older woman, and she's fine, but these sequences are not at all cinematic. They play like Hampton just transcribed the screenplay from the novel. Seriously, Redgrave spends the end of the film staring into the camera and explaining to you what you have just seen, and then the title of the movie. (She's being interviewed by Anthony Minghella for TV cameras at the time).

It's kind of embarrassing, really. The film might as well have ended with Minghella in a smoking jacket with a pipe, in an easy chair, closing the book version of "Atonement" and wishing you a safe drive home. If you can't think of a way to show us what happens in the book visually in at least a semi-compelling fashion, don't adapt that book. Simple as that.

Dark Knight Trailer

I saw it in front of I Am Legend. Now it's on YouTube:



Most discussion centers of Heath Ledger's Joker make-up. Yes, it's a more realistic look than the Nicholson version. But it totally works for Christopher Nolan's vision of a more realistic Gotham City and the vibe of the first film. Plus, he has the voice TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY NAILED.

The years, to my mind, have not been to kind to the first Burton Batman film. (I maintain that Batman Returns was the superior episode). And one of the things that come off the worst to me looking back is the Jack Nicholson performance. It's way too much Jack and not enough Joker. In fact, I think he's much more enjoyable in the Charles Napier scenes, before he makes his transformation. Not a good sign.

He's just not evil enough. All Clown Prince and no Crime. (He wants to mutate the citizens of Gotham with toxic shampoo and spray graffiti in the Guggenheim? Really? That's the set-up for your blockbuster action film?) So I'm looking forward to seeing what Ledger does with the character and how he's changed.

Plus, it's hard to knock any film that releases this as a one-sheet.



Beautiful.

I Am Legend

[SPOILER WARNING: I will do my best not to reveal crucial information about the end of the new Will Smith film I Am Legend in this review, but I can't very well talk about my impressions without divulging some aspects of the Third Act. As well, I intend to spoil the ending of Richard Matheson's original novel upon which the film as based, which is also the ending of the two previous film adaptations, the Vincent Price film The Last Man on Earth and the Charlton Heston classic The Omega Man. Sorry.]

I Am Legend gets off to an amazing start. Robert Neville is the last man alive in a broken Manhattan reclaimed by Nature. We find him racing around the streets amidst empty rows of tanks and fading Quarantine signs in a sports car, chasing wild deer around Times Square. He moves in to kill a buck, but is thwarted by a pack of lions. All around him, the evidence of our consumer-crazed, advertising-obsessed civilization crumbles. In a few more decades, all traces of humankind will have dissolved.

Director Francis Lawrence and his design and art departments render the Manhattan of 2012 so credibly, it's almost distracting. It's hard to focus on the action of the story - you have to consciously stop marveling at the empty, despoiled New York City sets.

Plus, I think I prefer watching Will Smith without co-stars. He can't wisecrack as much with only mannequins and a dog around to hear him. There's still some rather tedious business in which he chats with the aforementioned department store props, attempting to maintain some semblance of a community and a daily routine, for it's fortunately short-lived. Lawrence has made a movie of intense silences, and Smith bravely caps his usual jocularity to get inside the head of a more troubled, brooding individual than he typically portrays.



Robert Neville has a lot to be depressed about. An Army Colonel and doctor who was working on a cure for the engineered virus that wiped out nearly all of humanity, he's now without his family, his faith or any significant hope for the future. Each night, he must hide from the roving Infected, humans who have caught the virus and turned into kill-crazy maniacs.

Neville maintains a rigid schedule - hunting and restocking his Washington Square apartment by day, continuing to work for a cure in his basement lab, and then hiding in a bathtub in the fetal position with his beloved dog Sam and a high-powered rifle all night. He sends out AM radio messages searching for other survivors, but evidently has no real hope of finding anyone else.

Lawrence previously made the above-average comic book adaptation Constantine, and there as here, he demonstrates a gift for CG-heavy action scenes. I typically find sequences in which live-action characters battle with computer-generated meanies either dull or ridiculous, and it's undeniable that Lawrence's vampire-zombies (and even some of the CG animals) look entirely fraudulent. But still, there's a certain kinetic sense to the way these monsters jump around, and I liked how the Main Vampire's ragged clothes flopped around in the air as he howled and shuffled about. Everything moves fast - the vampires typically look like little more than pale white blurs - but we get just well-chosen little details. (The suble death rattle of a freshly-killed vampire, say, or the creepy, hunched-over huddle formation in which the vampires sleep.)

So, yes, there's lots to like. But then the Third Act happens and ruins everything.

Seriously, this is a horrific case of screenplay sabotage. And who wrote this screenplay, that lurches into its final half-hour and lands somewhere between obtuse and offensive? That would be the all-star duo of Mark Protosevich (writer of Poseidon!) and Akiva Goldsman (writer of...get ready for this...Batman and Robin, Lost in Space, A Beautiful Mind, I Robot and The Da Vinci Code!) Who could have imagined these guys would deliver anything less than a superior conclusion?

Sarcasm aside, it's pretty much fait accompli that an Akiva Goldsman script will fail to deliver. But I'm still gobsmacked at just how poorly the conclusion to I Am Legend comes off.

[Warning: Spoilers Ahead!]

So here's how the original story goes, the original ending that, bear in mind, BOTH previous film adaptations maintained. Neville discovers that, contrary to his previous thinking, the vampires have started their own sort of society from within the old human world. (There aren't, after all, any humans left.) They have been hunting him not because they mean to feed on him, but because he's been hunting them. The title itself refers to the stories vampires tell one another about the last human, a ghoulish figure who tries to kill them while they sleep.

It's a message about fear of the unknown and, in the end, about tolerance and acceptance. Goldsman and the Poseidon guy ditch this in favor of a very American, very silly good-vs.-evil, rah-rah-Amuricah! ending in which God comes down from Heaven and shows Neville how to save the day and destroy the evildoers. It's pretty much a complete rip-off of Signs, which is a really stupid movie to rip off. (Though it's better than ripping off Lady in the Water.)

I don't know, maybe they were afraid the original ending would make Neville too unlikeable, so they had to come up with some more heroic, noble send-off for him. The only problem is, it makes the film pointless. Also, a lot of the previous scenes we've seen (like having the vampires cleverly turn one of Neville's traps against him) don't make sense in light of the conclusion. Oh, yeah, and the FUCKING TITLE doesn't make sense. But, you know, otherwise it's fine...

Favorite Songs of 2007, Part 2

[See Part 1 here]

You know what I can't stand? Lists by music critics of the Year's Best Songs that always include the year's most popular songs near the top, as if any list like this is going to be definitive and authoritative, rather than just based on personal tastes. Rolling Stone picks Rihanna's "Umbrella" as the #3 song this year...

Really? Cause the thing is...that's definitely the year's most ubiquitous song, but it's totally overrated. Boring, even. And I doubt that it's any Rolling Stone writers sincere choice for Song of the Year. Even if you're a big R&B fan, there are better songs out there. That's just the one that hit big this summer, and that boasts the largest Ringtone sales figures.

Anyway, let's continue with my list, that does not include Rihanna's "Umbrella."

Celebration, "Evergreen"



David Vandervelde, "Murder in Michigan"

Another that's definitely among my favorite songs of the year. This song is so evocative, both of another era in songwriting and of a certain kind of feeling, between adoration and pity. Brilliant.



Deerhunter, "Spring Hall Convert"

It starts out with what sounds like a waterless bong rip, totally appropriate for a song that eventually turns into a swirling psychedelic trip out session.



Dinosaur Jr., "Back To Your Heart"

Dino Jr. was BACK this year, and they still sound FANTASTIC. So many reunions just feel like an opportunity for nostalgia, but these guys clearly have more great albums in them. "Beyond," title included, felt like a new beginning.



Eagle*Seagull, "I Don't Know If People Have Hated Me, But I Have Hated People"

I heard a song from this band last year - the very Cure-ish "Photograph" - and liked it, but this track blew me away completely. It's the piano - does it every time.



Everything, Now!, "Take a Gawk at the Weird Side"



Feist, "My Moon My Man"

My favorite song from Feist's amazing "The Reminder"



Fiery Furnaces, "Ex-Guru"

This is The Fiery Furnaces at their fuzzy, infectious best. Their 2007 release, "Widow City," is a true return to form and a surefire bet for my Top Albums list.



Great Lake Swimmers, "Where In the World Are You"

I can only take these guys in small doses - their music gets a bit too precious after a while. So intimate, you almost need to ESCAPE. But this is just a beautiful song. It should totally be in a sad movie...



Immaculate Machine, "Dear Confessor"

Straight-forward, catchy, basic indie rock style right here. This song could totally be popular if it were on the radio. (I especially like the interaction between the male and female voices - like a better, more direct Rainer Maria.)

[Go on to Part 3]

Favorite Songs of 2007, Part 1

Usually, I come up with a list of my favorite 20 or so songs out of a given year. But now that I'm regularly using iTunes at both work and home, it's relatively easy to compile a somewhat more thorough, extensive list of the music I've listened to and enjoyed in 2007. So I'm going to just post a long collection of songs, all the ones I've really been into this year, over the course of several posts. (As many as it takes, really.) Then, when that's all done, I'll post my Top Albums of the Year list (which I promise to limit to 21.)

So, here we go...in alphabetical order...which means this wouldn't make a particularly good mixtape...

!!!, "Bend Over Beethoven"



The 1900s, "Everybody's Got a Collection"

I like this song because it sounds really pleasant and up-tempo, and then you listen to the lyrics and discover it's pretty mean-spirited. Even cruel.



Aesop Rock, "Catacomb Kids"

My favorite track on Aesop's considerable "None Shall Pass" record.



Apostle of Hustle, "My Sword Hand's Anger"

This sounds very much like a Broken Social Scene song, which is always a good thing. The hook is near-perfect. The whole album, "National Anthem of Nowhere," was really solid.



Bat for Lashes, "What's a Girl to Do"

Definitely one of my favorite songs this year. It's got the kind of lonely, desolate, even eerie sound that really appeals to me for some reason. Plus, one of the year's coolest videos.



Black Kids, "I'm Not Gonna Teach You"

Fantastic stuff. They've got a very catchy, '80s synth-pop kind of sound that takes me back to my childhood, really.



The Boggs, "Forts"

This sounds like music made by inebriated, dizzy people late at night in a forest somewhere. It kinds of reminds me of a slightly lower-key, less insane Man Man. Maybe what Man Man sounded like right before they ate the garbage bag full of magic mushrooms.



Broken Social Scene and Kevin Drew, "Lucky Ones"



Buck 65, "Benz"

I only listened to this because Cadence Weapon guests on it, but I liked the song enough to check out Buck 65's whole record. Canadian Rap FTW!



CALLA, "Bronson"

I was kind of obsessed with this song for a while. Really, just that first little part..."I know a thing or two abooooouuuuuutttt..." Not sure why.



[On to Part 2! Or skip ahead to Part 3!]

Greatest Achievement in Headline History?

I'm going to go ahead and say...yes.

Coming Attractions...

I'm not at liberty to discuss details, but we've got a Mahalo Daily coming for you people...It's really going to be something.

Actually, I know of two notable Mahalo Daily's we have planned for the near-future. One features yours truly, another features an exciting special guest.

No, not Tommy Wiseau, though that WAS pretty awesome.



I can say no more at this time, but I'm pretty sure both episodes will be up before the New Year. Look forward to them, starting...NOW.

Pure Unadulterated Pain

This "12 Days of Christmas" parody, produced by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, may be the most blisteringly awful attempt at an Internet video meme I have ever seen. This makes that creepy Ginger Kid from NewsBusted look like George Carlin.



Okay, you didn't get through the whole thing. Naturally, I don't blame you. It's impossible to watch even a second of this video and not immediately enter a Simon Cowell impression. "I thought it was absolutely excruciating. Please, please, do the world a favor and never sing again. Actually, after giving it some thought, you'd probably be better off not speaking either. You could hurt yourself."

So, to spare you the need to sit through the whole thing (as I did, dear reader, for your benefit...), here are the 12 things "the liberals" gave to the NRSC for Christmas:

12 Senators Failing

- Here, they put photos of 12 Senators up, but it's so fast and poorly Photoshopped, you can't actually tell who they are. I picked out Kerry, and that's it. And bear in mind, I follow news and politics for a living. If I'm having trouble spotting faces, how does a person who does something non-news-media-related all day have any chance?

11 Percent Approval

- Not funny in any real way, which you'd think would be the point, but at least this one is true...sorta. The reason Congress has such a low approval rating is that they won't stand up to the Republican President, the thing they were voted into office to do only last year. But I don't want to begrudge the video this one...it's the only point they actually succeed in making.

10 Paychecks Burning

- Huh? The Democrats want to light your paycheck on fire?

90 Thousand Freezing

- This is a reference to that money that was stashed in Democratic Rep. William Jefferson's freezer. Which happened quite some time ago (in politics time, an eternity), and was only national news for a few days. In Louisiana, they'll get this joke. Otherwise, not so much. (Plus, not funny, and they have to change "9" to "90,000" just to make it fit into the song.)

No More Secret Ballots

- This is a TWOFER. It doesn't make any sense and it doesn't use an 8, which is the entire point of parodying this song! Why do a "12 Days of Christmas" riff if you're not even going to fucking bother following the format!?!!!?!?! This doesn't bother me as a liberal, but as a Weird Al fan. It's like writing a send-up of The Raven that isn't in trochaic octameter. (You know it when you hear it...)

"Once upon a midnight dreary
While I sat around in my room smoking bong loads in my underpants waiting for my Chinese food to arrive
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore..."

The effect, as they say, is lost.

700 Billion in New Spending

- This line also sucks, because they change 7 to "700 Billion" and it's so long that the singer can barely get it out in time. Also, it's kind of a weaksauce argument coming from these Republican scumbags who are wasting our tax dollars on corporate giveaways. Sometimes just losing billions at a time. For real! Just losing your money to graft and fraud!

6 Troop Funding Cuts

- The woman who sings this line sounds gravely ill, and the effect gets worse with each repetition. Also, this is incredibly disingenuous and manipulative. They're referring to attempts to end this seemingly endless, futile and bloody disaster as "troop funding cuts," as if Democrats have proposed simply abandoning wide swaths of the American soldiers in the desert with IOUs, peanut butter sandwiches and swift kicks in the ass. There have been attempts to cut off new funds to continue the war into more and more months and years. To my knowledge, no "leave 'em in the Middle East to rot whilst we move in on their wives" bills have been offered by the Democratic Congress.

Bear in mind, I don't particularly like this Democratic Congress. They're a bunch of privileged, timid, bureaucratic assholes who don't seem to give two shits about what their constituents or anyone else wants, and seem determined to fight only to maintain the status quo. But these arguments are just pathetic and dishonest in equal measure. Plus, they're delivered in song. Shrill, monotonous, nigh on unlistenable song.

Hillary's Woodstock Museum

- And here's where the song reaches maximum crapulence. It doesn't contain the 5 in "Five Golden Rings," it refers to a non-scandal that those who don't comment daily on Confederate Yankee will miss, and it's delivered in the most bleating, eardrum-shattering, hope-meltingly odious tone my ears have ever had the displeasure of encountering. This diva's final, otherworldly "Hillary's Woodstock Museum" will continue to haunt my nightmares for years to come.

The joke is, Hillary had asked for $1 million in taxpayer monies to build a Woodstock Museum in her state (not coincidentally, the state in which Woodstock occurred.) I don't actually think this is a bad idea. In fact, I'm kind of surprised there isn't already a Museum there commemorating the most famous rock concert of all time.

I mean, if some Tennessee hillbilly asked for $1 million to completely renovate and restore the Grand Ol' Opry, you think there'd be rioting in the streets or a commercial about it being such an awful idea. Probably not. (I've never been, and I don't really care about country music, but I don't think that project would be out of line either.)

The point is, this is the best Congressional Republicans can do in making their case for re-election next year. The Best They Can Do. Silly pet projects, ancient scandals, non-sequiteur (No more secret ballots? I still have no clue what they mean with that one...) and outright misrepresentations, all delivered in such an obnoxious, amateurish manner, no one could possibly sit through the whole thing, even like-minded partisans.

NOTE: They actually wrote an explanation key in the YouTube "About this Video" section, obviously figuring that viewers would be confused. But even after reading their explanation of the "No More Secret Ballots" line, I still don't know what the hell they're talking about.

(Big Labor payback for union bosses)

Huh?

4 bucks a gallon

- At least they got a four in there...I'll give them that. Still, not quite sure how this is the fault of Congressional Democrats. More like trigger-happy Republican presidents starting needless wars in the places where they keep all the oil.

Al Franken ranting

- Can't help but notice...no 3. Just sad, really. You know what, Republicans? I'm going to GIVE YOU this one...

"3 Cops a-Slapping"

You remember, how Cynthia McKinney slapped that cop around when he stopped her in the Capitol? And look, it has a 3 in it! Just like the original song!

But the best part of this line is the explanation in the sidebar:

(Angry Hollywood liberal)

Yes, I mean, who could forget Franken's classic work on "Saturday Night Live," a Hollywood institution shot every week in the heart of Los Angeles, California. (Don't believe that whole "Live, from New York..." bit. It's just more of that baffling Hollywood liberal irony.)

2 liberal Udalls

- Again, I read the news every day, all day, at work, so I'm vaguely aware that there are some guys up for Congressional seats in 2008 named Udall. I can't imagine more than 1% of Americans (and that's probably too high) are aware of this fact. They do not need to be. No one needs to be. It is, at this point, totally insignificant to everyone's life.

Was this just desperation to work a two in there? Because they obviously weren't worried about that shit when it came to 3 or 5. (Seriously, how many people do you think it took to write this song? Was it more than 1/8 of one person? Because if so, that's too many.)

Also, in case you didn't watch this (and let's face it...you couldn't have...) and forget how the original goes, 2 comes at the very very beginning, which means it's repeated 11 times. Hearing a bad joke poorly sung once kind of sucks. Hearing a bad joke poorly sung 11 times is like watching your grandmother and a litter of puppies get burned alive in a Bessemer Converter. 11 times.

And a tax hike for every family!

- As a single man, I have to tell you...I'm strongly in favor of a tax hike for most families. Fuck you all, I gots to get mine. No one's ever after my vote. Not once has a politician ever attempted to reach out to the slothful 20-something single urban male. Not once. And I could be bought...pretty easily. Way easier than these NASCAR dads, who have a list of demands a mile long and some of whom seem to love Fred Thompson, so God knows what the hell is wrong with that crowd.

But the slothful 20-something single urban male is a voter without a representative. Build me a low-cost bullet train from here to Vegas, I'm yours. Legalize it, you've got my vote for at least a decade. Stop using my money to put up billboards advising mothers to talk to their children about not having sex early and often, your ideas will intrigue me and I will subscribe to your newsletter. Pander to me for once, dammit!

Ridic

So, drop what you're doing and go to Angry Ken immediately. My friend and fellow Mahalonian, Veronica, has live-blogged last night's "Hills" finale/reunion/thing and it's absolutely fantastic. I've been telling her she needs her own blog for a long time now, and this only once again confirms my theory. Just a taste...

Frankie Delgado just walked in and the show came back on, its pretty funny each time the show starts back they make sure somebody walks on the carpet so it can look like we are yelling for them. Brody ran up to him and damn I wouldnt mind being in between those two hot pieces of ass. (Ken: Stop!)

oh yah Ken took a picture of brody and I, and it came out like shit (thats totally Ken’s fault)

Jen Bunney just walked in, and I can smell the skank from here…the nost she has is made for a 5 year old. her and miss hilton must have gone to the same plastic surgeon…also she has some gnarly bruises on her legs, somebody had a kinky night

Yes.

The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass, the first film to be made from Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy of fantasy books, feels a lot like that first "Harry Potter" film. A frightened Chris Columbus had a ridiculous amount of hype and expectation to live up to, so he carefully made sure to include as much material from the novel as humanly possible. Tell the story in exactly the same way, so as not to offend the die-hards.

It makes sense if you're adapting a juggernaut like Sorcerer's Stone, but I'm not sure Chris Weitz had to take the same tack with Pullman's books. Sure, these stories have many, many devoted fans. They're very good fantasy books - they're going to have devoted fan followings. But if the entire point is to open these stories up to a mass audience, greater liberties can be taken.



The frenzied pace kicks in immediately. We meet Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards), a presumed orphan living under the care of the faculty of Jordan College, and almost immediately, she's on the move. Even though several of her schoolyard chums will become important later on in the film, we get to know them in a flash, during a chase scene, no less. I understand that this follows roughly the plotline of the novel's first chapter, but that's a book. A single chapter's worth of prose can obviously give us more information and insight into these kids and their world than 4 minutes of action-oriented screen time.

Lyra's mysterious Uncle, the esteemed scholar Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), has shown up and announced, controversially, that the universe is held together by dust, and that by manipulating this dust, he can visit parallel universes. He also gives Lyra a magical Golden Compass (otherwise known as an alethiometer), made with this crazy universe dust, that can answer any question truthfully provided you can understand its symbol code.

All of this flies in the face of the Doctrines of the Magisterium, a brutal authority-religion run by severe British actors Derek Jacobi and Christopher Lee. (Their Evil Staff Meeting is one of the film's best scenes, far more in line with the tone of the books than the surrounding material. Also, "Evil Staff Meeting" would be a great name for a short film, and I intend to start writing such a project immediately.)

So the Magisterium send one of their agents, Marisa Coulter (Nicole Kidman, in To Die For perky-evil mode) to get Lyra and the alethiometer. This, of course, is really just the prelude to the real story, which involves witches and armored bears and kidnapped Gyptian children and spirit-animals that follow you around and offer advice called daemons. Seriously...it's a cool book...

Unwisely, Weitz (who directed and wrote the screenplay, and whose past credits include and About a Boy and American Pie) tries to fit this entire novel's worth of characters and incidents into 2 hours. It's barely possible. So, as a consequence, the whole film feels rushed. (I can't imagine everyone involved didn't know this.)

We can't slow down to take in anything about this alternate reality universe because we've got to hustle to the next location and meet the next amazing new species. The film's not difficult to follow, as the storytelling's still quite linear, but it's too busy to build any real momentum. We don't grow to care about anyone or anything because we only have a few quick moments to get to know them.

Take the witches (please!) They come in so late in the story that Weitz has essentially run out of time. We need a big climax, and pronto. So one witch (Eva Green) floats down to visit Lyra, deliver some much-needed exposition, then flies away, to return briefly during a battle scene and then hang around at the end as if she's earned Main Character status. Who the hell are these witches? What do they care about the kidnapped children and the bears? It would be as if the elves in Lord of the Rings just showed up at the final battle in Return of the King. "Oh, hey, there's elves in Middle Earth, too! Did you see those talking trees? They're weird. Okay, let's go kill these guys!"

Sam Elliott, playing the friendly pilot who helps Lyra along her way, gets a few intensely difficult scenes to play, essentially explaining a portion of the movie to the protagonist. "Oh, hey there, little girl. Why, did you know everything you needed to know about this strange new location in which you've arrived? Shucks, you've come to the right place."

It's too bad, really, because these are good actors and you can tell they're ready to give these parts their all, but they get no time in which to establish anything but cartoon personalities. (Which is okay for Ian McKellan, who's voicing a cartoon bear.)

Dakota Blue Richards is really terrific as Lyra; some of the best scenes in the film are the early ones in which she established the young girl's headstrong, adventurous spirit. She's stubborn and, of course, brave but not precocious, though there's a slyness to her expression at times that exceeds her years. She even manages to build a reasonably believable relationship with a CG-animated bear voiced by Ian McKellan. Yet she becomes little more than a prop when all is said and done, bounced around by this tropical storm of a screenplay until she winds up floating off into the middle-distance, talking excitedly about the events we will see in the next thrilling episode.

Weitz has kept all the incident, but radically changed the tone. What is a fairly dark novel has become much lighter fare, more upbeat and humorous, which is fine. (The rating, I would guess, is for one shot of bear-related violence, and it's actually pretty unnecessary.) You can't expect this kind of big-budget holiday family fantasy film to retain all the dark edges of a weird Englishman's fiction. But if he was willing to shift the books to this degree, to turn a frequently intense, occasionally estoric series of atheist-themed novels into a mainstream, gingerly anti-authoritarian film franchise...why not trim some of the plot so you can actually make it into a real movie? A more cinematic flair, some time to let situations develop and establish relationships, would have done amazing things for this movie. As it stands, it's a decent entertainment, better than Narnia but not by enough.

If You Were a Creationist, You'd Be Homeschooled by Now

I love Creationist videos. They're my favorite type of YouTube content, barely edging out hilarious trailer remixes, Tourette's Guy and 2 Girls 1 Cup. (No link on that one...consider yourself lucky...)

In the past, I've linked to such wacky Fundie hijinks as "Moron Uses Woeful Banana Metaphor" and "Moron Confuses Evolution with Spontaneous Generation." Now, I'm pleased to present to you: "Huge Moron Confuses Evolution with Cosmology."



This one is really something special. I'm not sure a single thought expressed in this 3 minute documentary makes any logical sense or holds up to any sort of scrutiny.

I mean, you don't need to actually know anything about astronomy to know this makes no sense. A child would understand that it's completely, bafflingly wrong.

Of course, all of these videos attempting to validate Creationism by poking holes in specific scientific theories are fundamentally flawed. This video opens with a whopper of an assumption - either the universe was created by a Big Bang, or it was fashioned by an intelligent, Judeo-Christian God. Surely, there are other possibilities. Maybe the universe is just an elaborate computer program, a la The Matrix. Maybe we all exist inside a tiny particle of a wholly different universe. Perhaps the universe is actually cyclical, and it breaks down and then reforms as part of some far larger mechanism too elaborate for us to grasp.

Naturally, if you can only comprehend circumstances in this limiting, binary fashion - God or Bing Bang - you would get confused and fail to make clear, concise arguments. This way of thinking is just wrong, so it would lead to wrong conclusions. Under this method of reasoning, if you could disprove the Big Bang Theory, you would then PROVE the alternative - God. But of course, science doesn't work that way. If you disproved the Big Bang Theory, you would just move along to the next-most-reasonable hypothesis and start testing it out. You wouldn't just throw up your hands, say "God musta did it!" and get back to praying.

Most complicated answers in the world of science do not come wrapped in neat little black-and-white, this way or the other packages. It's an ongoing learning process, with each generation getting a bit smarter than the last.

This disembodied narrator just makes outlandish claim after outlandish claim, with no support for his contentions whatsoever. There's no scientific journey of discovery here; just pure authoritarianism. It's this way cause I says so! Just listen to the language:

"Since about 98% of the Sun is hydrogen or helium, Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury should have similar compositions."

SHOULD? Who uses "should" in this way when referring to natural phenomenon. Using an innately human, frequently foolish "common sense" mechanism, yes, I can see how one would assume that the sun and the surrounding planets would have similar chemical compositions. But there's nothing scientific about that assumption...That's why it's called "common sense." It's common to all of us, even those with no background in these sorts of questions.

Someone who's a bit more educated and well-read on the subject might try to figure out why the Sun is made up of different chemicals than Mercury, hoping the answer gets us a bit closer to understanding all our fundamental questions about the nature of things.

I'm just saddened by the kind of mind that works the other way, that attempts to erase these questions out of existence by falling back on an easy answer. ("God done it!") A mind that, in fact, gets upset when others try to answer these questions, and posts videos online about how these questions should be ignored or ascribed to a childish fantasy.

I also don't find this answer any more satisfying than not having any answer at all. Why is it impossible that the universe would have formed like this, with Mercury being composed of different substances than the Sun, but a thoughtful God would have arranged things this way? Oh, some planets orbit clockwise and others counter-clockwise? That must have been God! Huh? Are we really so insecure as a species, that we need to pretend to grasp all this stuff right now? We need to make up answers to fill in every gap left by our imperfect understanding?

Also, the video says that the formation of a large gaseous planet like Jupiter poses an insurmountable obstacle for "evolutionists," which may be the silliest sentence I have ever heard, ever.

First of all, evolutionists don't really give the formation of Jupiter much thought. I'm pretty sure Darwin had absolutely nothing to say about Jupiter's formation. These guys hate Evolution so much, it's literally spilling over into every other scientific discipline.

Also, as far as I know, an observation ("Jupiter is a large, gaseous planet located relatively far from the Sun") cannot be an "insurmountable obstacle" for scientists. If an observation genuinely violates a scientific principle, and the observation can be demonstrated reliably, then the original principle will be amended. This is why you rarely meet any phrenologists. The fact that THIS HASN'T HAPPENED yet to our present understanding of the universe does not indicate that it is 100% absolutely definitely true. But it does mean it is the best theory we have at the present time.

I suppose a certain simplistic mindset can't handle that level of uncertainty, so they have to make 3 minute videos assuring all of us that uncertainty doesn't exist. But of course...it does. Fucking deal with it.

[Hat tip: Sadly, No!]

Indiana Jones and the Fiery Cartoon Background

Check out the new poster for "Indiana Jones 4," aka "Indiana Jones and the Awkward, Overlong Title."



I like it. Of course, it's by Drew Struzan, who designed all the other Indy posters, so it has a lot of nostalgia value for old-skool fans. But it's also just a cool looking image. Harrison's got kind of a weird expression on in this one, though...It's a bit too kindly, like he wants to take you out to get a nice bite to eat and catch up on how you're doing in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, not fight Nazis or Greasers or Communist Nazi Greasers or whomever the villain's going to be this time around.

Still, I'll take it.

Going to Pink's With Orson Welles

My friend Julia loaned me this book, "Talk to Her," a collection of interviews with artists, musicians and celebrities. There's an amazing brief essay in here in which a guy who worked as Orson Welles' personal assistant for a few years in the late '70s and early '80s recalls their relationship. Highly recommended reading for any fans of Welles or just good stories about Hollywood and filmmaking.

Here's my favorite part. Welles and the narrator are going out for a bite to eat, but Welles unfortunately has no money, his wallet having been stolen from his dressing room at the "Tonight Show" earlier that evening.

"Anyhow, I told him I had 12 dollars and he said, 'Great, let's go to Pink's,' which was a cheap hot dog stand he liked. As we were driving along he suddenly asked me to pull over and said, 'I have an extra pair of pants in the truck and there's probably some money in the pockets.' He found another eight dollars and said, 'Then it's the International House of Pancakes.' We were just about to pull into the parking lot when I suddenly remembered that I'd received my first credit card in the mail that day. He was ecstatic. 'Why didn't you say so!' he said. 'That means it's Don the Beachcomer!,' which was his favorite restaurant. So we went to Don's and when we walked in everyone greeted him, he was shown to his favorite table, and they brought him his gold, engraved chopsticks, which were enshrined in a case in the middle of the room with the chopsticks of other famous people. After he ordered, he said to the waiter, 'My son here would love to have the same thing as me' - he was in a very generous, emotional mood."

The interview with Guy Maddin is really worthwhile as well. But that Welles passage seriously made me well up...I almost need a tissue here...