We Ought to Get Us Some of That There Reform...

I'm sorry, I know that polls demonstrate Americans are looking for "change" in their government...

But if, like John McCain, you're the most famous Senator from the party that has essentially run the show for the better part of a decade, you look silly running as a reform candidate. Like, very very silly. Like, you can't talk about reality at all, pretty much, because it would work against the case you're building. You have to start making things up, which means that, of course, you'll run into contradictions. The whole argument gets chaotic and confusing, exactly the opposite of what you want. (For more insight into this, one need only watch any given episode of "Mad Men." The best "pitches" are the most straight-forward. Jackie or Marilyn?)

I've watched a lot of GOP Convention coverage this week (hey, it's my job, kinda), and it has felt entirely surreal. Like watching footage of an old political convention in the library. How can Mitt Romney go on and on bashing the "liberal Washington establishment" in 2008? He might as well be railing against the fiscal policies of Josiah Bartlet. Even worse than that, the Republican critique, repeated over and over again at this convention, contradicts itself directly.

Here's a segment of McCain's speech tonight:

"Let me just offer an advance warning to the old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first, country-second crowd," McCain declared in his acceptance speech. "Change is coming."

So...the Democrats don't do anything. Okay, fair enough. I actually almost somewhat agree with this argument. The Congressional Democrats have not done a lot of things I would have liked them to do, and they are, in fact, largely about symbolic gestures.

(Bear in mind, I'm upset that they're not doing anything to fight the policies of Republicans like John McCain. But the point still stands.)

But how can you concede that things are bad in this country, requiring a "change," then argue that your opponents don't do anything? Doesn't that mean all the bad things are your party's fault? And, of course, they are. Nancy Pelosi didn't lie Americans into a pointless, unwinnable war while losing track of Osama bin Laden. Harry Reid didn't install clueless lackeys and yes-men in positions of great power, wrecking our ability to protect the public from unsafe products, get people out of harm's way during a massive storm or successfully prosecute federal criminals. And Barack Obama didn't decide we should start torturing people, or spying on their phone calls (though he does sort of seem okay with it after the fact, which sucks).

The Republicans, Romney and McCain in particular, are basically admitting these things are not their fault ("they don't do anything!") before essentially blaming them anyway. Sarah Palin seems to think US Weekly is at fault. And I'm not sure who Giuliani even hates any more - everyone not actually standing inside the Xcel Energy Center?

(Speaking of glaring contradictions, Giuliani mocking Obama for liking big cities? Giuliani was mayor of fucking New York. Obama's from Kansas. He thinks Obama's too cosmopolitan? WTF?)

I know Republicans essentially think their constituents are dumb. They think they can just lie to them over and over again, pretend to care about them and their issues long enough to get into power for a few more years, and then continue to give them the shaft like always. And it usually does work. I sort of disagree. I think that, certainly, a lot of American voters are gullible, and can be convinced through clever speeches and smart politicking to vote against their own interests much of the time.

But gullible people eventually do figure shit out, particularly if you make it kind of obvious that you're messing with them. And that's what tonight's acceptance speech from McCain felt like. The part of the crank call where you kind of can't hold on any more and start making up really ludicrous stuff, hoping the person on the other end catches on so you can just hang up.

200 Episodes!

Mahalo Daily hits a milestone today with our 200th episode. (That's 180 more than "The Famous Teddy Z"!)

I'm so proud to be a part of this podcast and to have worked (and continue to work) with such a fantastic group of people. Congrats to Michael, John, Conrad, Buck, Leah, Veronica, Tyler, Jason, all the Mahalo Guides like my brother and Evan who helped us out along the way and, oh yeah, ME!

This Sarah Palin Post Will Not Mention the Pregnancy Thing...

Oh, wait...damn it...

Anyway, I'd just like to again point out that I think Democrats are focusing on the wrong arguments against the Palin selection here. The big issue is not that she's inexperienced, or that her daughter is pregnant. The big issue is that she's fucking crazy. And apparently not particularly well-versed in the history of our nation.

Blog The Stone of Tear has posted a questionnaire filled out by Palin when she was running for Alaska Governor in 2006. (Thanks to PZ for the link). Her answers are frightening:

2. Will you support the right of parents to opt out their children from curricula, books, classes, or surveys, which parents consider privacy-invading or offensive to their religion or conscience?

SP: Yes. Parents should have the ultimate control over what their children are taught.

But what if a child's parents are stupid? I mean, we can all allow for that, right? It's possible, at least theoretically, that two stupid people might breed. And as we all know, two stupid people are genetically capable of parenting an intelligent offspring. So why are we dooming each generation to be no brighter than the generation that passed before it?

An answer like this basically rejects the entire notion of public schooling. Why send kids to a communal institution like a school if you're going to restrict their education to what their parents already know and believe? Why take on the expense? Just let the kids figure shit out from Mom and Dad, and be done with it, cause an attitude like "parents should have the ultimate control over what their children are taught," rather than, oh, I don't know, "professionals with a fucking clue should have the ultimate control over what children are taught" isn't gonna make any kids any smarter.

Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?

SP: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.

Even though it totally doesn't work? That's sound. This is Bushism in its rawest form, folks. Sticking to a failed policy after it has clearly failed because it's the one you like the best.

This next one's actually kind of funny and sad at the same time:

11. Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

SP: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

Really? Really? REALLY? Who doesn't know that "Under God" was added in the 1950s? Who doesn't fucking know that? It's one of the most famous pieces of trivia, like, ever.

In fact, the Founding Fathers never said the Pledge of Allegiance, which was written in the late goddamn motherfucking 19th Century, you idiot! The Founding Fathers, a group of philosophers and radicals, many of whom were atheists, agnostics or Deists, would probably not have liked the idea of mandating that people say the phrase "Under God" nor saluting the flag while offering a loyalty oath. You may recall, they started a war to avoid having to pledge allegiance to King George III. Thomas Jefferson basically felt that you had a right to murder your leaders if they were cramping your style too much.

Now, I don't need Sarah Palin to have an intricate, nuanced understanding of the issues at play in the Second Continental Congress. But in addition to not offering an opinion about almost any of the major issues our next president will face, and responding to these kinds of policy questions with standard nonsensical evangelical boilerplate, she here demonstrates an outright ignorance of American history that's entirely off-putting from someone who wants to, you know, run America.

I say, before you can become vice-president, you should have to pass the same tests we give people who want to become U.S. citizens. Would Sarah Palin make the cut?

UPDATE:

Oh, and this? I mean, come the fuck on:



When did our overlords become so dumb? Say what you will about Dick Nixon - the guy was crafty. I mean, I expect these people to be kind of evil. But I expect them to fiendishly evil, not completely idiotic and evil. Warmongering Republican political candidates should be master criminals, not hapless bungling small-time crooks. I want Heath Ledger's joker, not Cesar Romero's.

UPDATE AGAIN:

Okay, I know I said I wouldn't mention the pregnancy, but I think Mahalo may have the first page on the Internet about the likely father of Bristol's baby, Levi Krueger. That's noteworthy, right? Come on, I'm doing something with my life, right? Anyone? Anyone?

Palin-tology

I'm not one of these people who feels like the presidency should be all about "experience." I mean, sure, politicians who have been in Washington for decades probably have a clearer idea about the day-to-day realities of the president's job, but that's hardly any kind of solid guarantee that they would handle these realities well. To my mind, it's far more important to elect a president you feel is capable of doing the job and who agrees, more or less, with your worldview than simply someone who has been around long enough to know about the intricacies in advance.

So I don't really care that Barack Obama has only been a Senator for a few years, or for that matter, that Sarah Palin was a mayor of a small Alaska town and has only spent 2 years as the state's governor. (It is kind of weird, when you think about it, that McCain has been running for President longer than Palin has been running Alaska. But still, the essential point remains.) If we were on the same page ideologically, and I felt like she seemed capable of representing me and this shared ideology within the federal government, I'd support her candidacy.

Unfortunately, she appears to be a complete nutbar.

From Think Progress:

In an interview released today by Newsmax, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) — Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) newly minted running mate — was asked for her “take on global warming and how is it affecting our country.” “A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location,” Palin said, adding, “I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.”

This would be the worst possible time to elect someone that hates science. The worst. We've endured 8 years of George W. Bush, a man who thinks The Scientific Method means having sex with a labcoat on. Nominating a global warming denier, someone who disagrees with pretty much every single actual trained knowledgeable expert in the world on one of the most significant issues facing our planet, is pretty much what you'd expect from today's Republican Party. But that doesn't mean it can't scare the shit out of me regardless.

Then there's this:

According to an October 2006 profile in the Anchorage Daily News, Palin opposes stem cell research, physician-assisted suicide, and state health benefits for same-sex partners.

Zing! Seriously, I know Republicans hate gay people and anyone with Parkinsons. Fine. But are we still even fucking debating physician-assisted suicide? What is wrong with you people? One of the two major political parties in America still consistently argues in 2008 that your grandma should have to live through every last insufferable moment of death via bowel cancer? Cause that's the way God wants it?

Earlier this year, she told the newspaper that schools should not fear teaching creationism alongside evolution. "Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information...Healthy debate is so important and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both. And you know, I say this too as a daughter of a science teacher."

Oh, well, she's the daughter of a science teacher...Never mind, then.

Is this election being held in 1508 and no one told me?

After reading these two articles, I would seriously rather vote for almost any other American citizen to be President. Mike Tyson. Heidi Montag. Mark David Chapman. (Hey, he has some interesting ideas...don't judge...)

And, let's not tiptoe around the issue, John McCain's second-in-command might have to take over at any moment. She's not a heartbeat away from the presidency; she's a stiff breeze away. I know she kind of looks like Tina Fey and is making the election itself more interesting, but this is serious stuff.

UPDATE:

Charming!



UPDATE #2:

The hits just keep on coming. Palin's take on Iraq:

A reporter for the Anchorage daily, Gregg Erickson, even did an online chat with the Washington Post, in which he revealed that Palin's approval rating in the state was not the much-touted 80%, but 65% and sinking -- and that among journalists who followed her it might be in the "teens." He added: "I have a hard time seeing how her qualifications stack up against the duties and responsibilities of being president.... I expect her to stick with simple truths. When asked about continued American troop presence in Iraq, she said she knows only one thing about that (I paraphrase): no one has attacked the American homeland since George Bush took the war to Iraq."

60% of the Time, Mahalo Works Every Time

So, part of me not blogging for a while has included me not blogging about working at Mahalo for a while. And that's gonna change...right now...

A few little things we've done I want to point out.

First, I think we're the best resource on the Internet for information about the big election. In addition to blowing out a ton of cool pages on the recent Democratic Convention, including pages on speeches by the Obamas, Biden, the Clintons, etc., we've been all over the VP race.

(My take on Sarah Palin? She's a Creationist who wants both creationism and evolution taught side-by-side in science classrooms. No thanks!)

Second, and perhaps more importantly, we made this page today about the Best Fictional Cops. I wrote the section about Commissioner Gordon!

In Which I Return from the Wilderness

Hey there, Lon-atics...Sorry for the unannounced sabbatical. I'm sure all 8 of you regular readers have been obsessively hitting refresh every three minutes for, like, weeks now. Not much that could be done, I'm afraid - it has been a fairly ludicrous August here at CBI Central. Some of it was spent balled up in the corner in the fetal position...other parts, not as much. I'm sure, in six months, there'll be a good blog post in there somewhere.

But for now, let's just cover a few things about which I didn't get a chance to opine:

(1) Joe Biden has silly hair and a history of being kind of an asshat, but old people like him

Near as I can tell, what happened was, Obama noticed that a lot of old people, even Democrats, don't really want to vote for him. Now, I'm not going to go ahead and say that this is just because he's a black guy and a lot of old people are racists...I'm sure there are plenty of other possibilities. His repeated calls to criminalize pre-5 pm dinner times, for example. Or his constant efforts to get "NCIS" canceled.

Anyway, here's this guy who has run for president a bunch of times, so if there were anything REALLY BAD about him we'd know it already. And this guy's been around forever, so all the old people recognize him and forget that he's not some avuncular celebrity from a bygone era, such as George Peppard...Then, feeling comfortable again, they agree to vote for the black guy. At least, that was probably the what the Obama camp was thinking.

I personally think it's an adequate but uninspired choice, which is a shame, because a lot of Obama's other choices have been inspired. I would have preferred a few of the suggested VP's, but then again, I'd have really hated to pull a lever or punch a hole or whatever the fuck California's going to have us do for a Sam Nunn or an Evan Bayh, people who stand for 94% of what I loathe about America. (Beating McCain's tight 97%!)

(2) If you've ever expressed any solidarity with liberalism, progressivism or the Democratic Party, you're not allowed to not vote for Obama because you dislike one relatively unimportant thing about him

For real. I don't care what that one thing is. Don't like Joe Biden? Not good enough. Pissed off about his betrayal on the FISA issue? Too bad. Angry that he's backed by a certain industry or lobbying group? They all are. Upset that he once said something not-very-nice about illegal file-traders? No one cares.

This election is really important. Like, seriously really intensely important. Here are some things that matter that will be at least partially decided by the outcome of the vote this November:

- Multiple horrifyingly violent conflicts around the world
- The future direction of the US economy
- More than one Supreme Court Justice, who will make major decisions on a whole host of crucial issues relating to daily life in America

If you look at those considerations but then say, "Yeah, but his former pastor once said that God should do bad stuff to America! And he doesn't like to wear pieces of flair with the American flag on them!," this means you are stupid. Hey, I'm just trying to help you out. Maybe you didn't know you were stupid. Now you do! Congrats, buddy!

This goes quadruple for you Twitter people reading this post. I'm really tired of hearing "I can't vote for Obama...he wants to raise taxes on exceptionally rich guys!" I forgot that you hate health care, reproductive rights and wars that end eventually.

(3) Tropic Thunder was much more funny than Pineapple Express

Both movies had parts that made me laugh. But I was very underwhelmed by Pineapple Express, considering the collaborators. Like every Judd Apatow movie, it was way too long, but I was just generally disappointed by the action. The whole final 30 minutes felt pointless. The action itself isn't particularly compelling or intense, so it just feels obligatory, unsuccessfully tacked on to the end of what is otherwise an amiable-enough stoner comedy. James Franco, however, does a really nice job, and I thought Craig Robinson, Danny McBride and Ed Begley Jr. were effective.

Tropic Thunder is actually pretty poorly assembled. It's really chaotic and frenzied, and I think that, had director Ben Stiller slowed down and let some of the situations/characters develop more, the whole enterprise would have worked much better. But even in its current form, Tropic Thunder is really funny and worth seeing. Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise are, of course, the standouts, but the whole cast works together really well, and it's just so far out there, willing to do absolutely anything to get a laugh, that I just kind of gave myself over to the spirit of the enterprise and enjoyed the hell out of it. Not sure if it would hold up on repeat viewings...but who cares? It worked well once, and that was enough.

(4) I really like the new Walkmen album

You & Me is a stupid title for an album (much in the same way that She & Him is a stupid name for a musical duo), but it sounds like kind of a return to form for me. (I didn't like A Hundred Miles Off or that Nilsson tribute nearly as much as Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone.) These guys are just interesting to listen to in a way most bands are not. Wish I could be more specific than that, but long-time readers will recall I suck at describing what I like about songs. Just a weird blind spot for me.

(5) I got into a car accident

It was really stupid and all my fault. One of things that happen and it just ruins your whole week, cause you keep playing your momentary stupidity over and over in your mind, and it's too late to do anything about it.

Right after I hit the back of this lady's car, I pulled over, as did she, and I walked up to her car to make sure everyone was okay. She said, really mean, "What were you thinking?"

I get why she'd be upset. But, I mean, obviously I was thinking something totally unrelated to crashing my car into someone. If I were thinking about crashing my car, that would mean I had foreseen the accident, which would probably cause me to hit the brakes before colliding with anything. Unless I run into other people's cars intentionally, like I'm in a Cronenberg movie. But if I'm the kind of dude who's ramming into other people's cars in the hopes of having eventually having sex, Spader-style, with the ensuing stump, I'm not necessarily going to admit that when questioned.

What I'm saying is, basically, I hit her car for absolutely no good reason...but she asked me a stupid question. So, in a very real sense, we're now even.

(6) Flight attendants will soon have the World's Most Embarrassing Job

According to Fox News, a reliable source for information and perspectives about world news if ever there was one, flight attendants will be expected to monitor customer use of the in-flight wireless Internet service. And you know what that means:

If the person sitting next to you or your child is viewing explicit porn and you're not happy about it, feel free to direct your complaint to the flight attendant.

"Um, yes, pardon me Mr., um, Thompson...I hate to disturb you. Some of the other customers have complained about your loud and repetitive viewing of what appears, from this distance, to be a video entitled 'Cake Farts.' If you wouldn't mind safely stowing your laptop and genitals in their proper, upright position, we won't have to go and get the Taser. Can I get you some tomato juice, perhaps? Or a second complimentary vacuum-sealed packet containing 2.7 peanuts?"

[NOTE: I'm not linking to Cake Farts, you sick bastard. Look it up yourself.]

And Now, the Best Review of Anything, Ever

The OxyWeb blog has released its hotly-anticipated "Top 5 Tech News and Gadget Video Podcasts Worth Watching," and I'm proud to say that Mahalo Daily has made the list at #4. Just look at the praise they're heaping on our modest little show!

This one is more of a variety show than tech, but ignoring that fact, it’s a worthy addition to the list. It’s hosted by the lovely Leah D’malio and some fat dude. Mahalo Daily provides a look at anything and everything from Comic Con to graffiti removal in LA. It can be a bit hit and miss but the “This Week in The Youtube” are well worth watching, everything else is a bit “meh”.

Some fat dude! I have truly arrived...

Tonight Was Fun!

Just returned from the Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget. Solid times were had by all. Here's some photographic evidence:





I also met Jeff Garlin, but that photo's just a Polaroid, and not immediately uploadable. Anyway, it was fun. Look for the episode to air some time soon.

The Dark Knight

One complaint about Dark Knight - I'm not crazy about the way they're manipulating Christian Bale's voice when he's playing Batman. It sounds very unnatural, less like a man disguising his own voice so as not to be recognized, and more like an overused production effect. There are a few scenes where his voice sounds so deep and gravelly, it's kind of distracting.

Other than that, the movie's basically perfect. I can't think of one single other flaw. Clearly, Christopher Nolan has made the finest superhero film of all time, and overall one of the best mainstream films in recent memory. The movie's a rather extraordinary achievement - intense, spectacular, nuanced, thoughtful and at times downright frightening. I already have my tickets to see it again in two days, and that feels like a much longer wait than I'd ideally like to endure. In short: yeah, it's that good...believe the hype...



Dark Knight is one of those sequels that improves on the original, but it's kind of a tough comparison. Though the films have a similar aesthetic and share most of the same cast, Batman Begins feels like an adventure movie, rocketing around the globe over the course of years in the life of Bruce Wayne. (Only about half the film concerns the exploits of Wayne as Batman in Gotham City.) Dark Knight is more of a crime thriller than anything else.

I read a review several weeks ago that compared the movie to Heat, and though they're very different in tone, it's a comparison that makes some degree of sense. Both films are about the relationship between a criminal and his pursuer, and the ways in which adversaries on opposite sides of the law can, over time, become morally indistinguishable.

In the intervening time since Nolan's first Batman film, the Caped Crusader has expanded his influence over Gotham City. Criminal organizations that once operated on the streets with impunity have been forced underground, funneling all of their ill-gotten money through a shady Chinese businessman, hiding from the tenacious Lieutenant Gordon (Gary Oldman), aggressive District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and, of course, the freaky guy in the bat costume who keeps punching everybody (Christian Bale).

Dark Knight opens with a dazzling bank robbery sequence, orchestrated by the psychopathic criminal mastermind The Joker (Heath Ledger). He's a self-described "freak" with a scarred face who disguises himself behind clown make-up. And I do mean criminal mastermind. Ledger and Nolan have highlighted the character's sinister intelligence more in this film than any other representation of The Joker I have ever seen.

Typically, as in the portrayal by Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton's original Batman movie, The Joker is essentially a circus clown, only evil - an insane, greedy man with a cheesy sense of humor. My point is, the focus is always on The Joker's madness. He only does what he does because he's batshit insane, and maybe wants a little money.

Ledger's Joker is certainly insane, but he's also fiendishly, diabolically clever. Smarter and more careful, even, than Batman. Bruce Wayne's relative sanity, in fact, becomes his only weapon against his foe by the film's final act. The Joker's quick-witted enough to avoid any direct combat with Batman, and always seems to be one step ahead of all the other Gotham City authorities. Sporadic irrationality is his only weakness.

Enough praise cannot really be heaped upon Heath Ledger's performance in the film. His death was horribly tragic, both because of his young age and his massive talent, but you really feel this tragedy while watching Dark Knight. The guy is jaw-droppingly brilliant in the movie, a force of sheer menace and terror. He absolutely vanishes into the role.

The entire cast is solid, though most of the veterans of Batman Begins, except for Bale and Oldman, have diminished roles this time around. Eckhart's great as Dent, a part that jibes really well with his charming-but-cocky persona, and the script has a lot of fun with his general physical resemblance to Bale. Without venturing too much into Spoiler territory, let me say that he navigates a very over-the-top and complicated late plot twist swimmingly, and turns what could have been a very pulpy, even silly, conclusion into something much more heartfelt and tragic.

In a big surprise for me, Eric Roberts joins the cast as crime boss Salvatore Maroni and fits into the Gotham universe seamlessly.



As in Begins, the action in Dark Knight is massive in scale, presented at breakneck speed but nonetheless smooth, clear and viscerally satisfying. An extended chase sequence featuring several armored cars feels like something out of a post-apocalyptic war film. The remarkable way in which Nolan maneuvers around intricate, complex sequences of shouted dialgoue, shootouts, fistfights and cataclysmic explosions and back reminded me of Ridley Scott's masterful work in Black Hawk Down.

When I review Michael Bay movies, I'm always careful to point out that his movies suck not because they feature a lot of explosions, but because he's a hack who has no idea how to shoot or edit together explosions in a way that is compelling.

Dark Knight is a perfect example of this principle. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Christopher Nolan is the exact, 180-degree, polar opposite of Michael Bay. He's Bizarro Bay. Much of his film is consumed with violence, action and explosions, but they are presented with clarity, vigor and confidence by a group of artists and professionals, people who know exactly where to place everything, how to time it properly and how to capture it on film. The final result will be you on the edge of your seat wondering how the hell Batman got his motorcycle to flip around like that.

And of course, all of this terrific acting and technical wizardry is in the service of another tremendous screenplay by Nolan and his brother, Jonathan. As they did in Batman Begins, the Nolans (who conceived of the story with David Goyer) weave together an engaging, emotionally resonant original story from all the familiar elements of Batman comics - familiar villains, gadgets and vehicles, gangsters, scientific investigations, police corruption, even discourses on the nature of morality and justice.

What they've added this time around is a healthy dose of social commentary, turning Batman's struggle against an unpredictable foe bent on sparking chaos into a pretty straight-forward terrorism allegory that's surprisingly effective. But I will withhold further comment for another time, so as to avoid spoilers. Also, I think the dialogue is just better here than Batman Begins, which was a great script but also had a bit of a stilted feel. Dark Knight is more unsettling, and even more bleak, but it also feels more human. Not having to span so many years in the life of Bruce Wayne or establish him for an audience frees Nolan up to explore his villain with more depth and give his protagonist more of a lived-in, emotional life, beyond the crime-fighting and rage.

Anyway, I've gone on long enough, and could keep going, believe me. Just see the film. I'd recommend checking out the IMAX version, if possible. Only the establishing shots and some of the action scenes were actually filmed in IMAX, so the movie switches back and forth between very, very large to EXTREMELY large, but it looks gorgeous either way, and the sound in the IMAX theaters is mind-blowing.

Hancock

It would be hard to argue that Hancock doesn't give you your money's worth. In a tight 90 minutes, you get at least 4 entirely different movies. And you only have to pay for one ticket!

This was one of those scripts that floated around Hollywood forever, constantly changing hands. Most of the directors who had once flirted with the notion of directing the film, including Michael Mann and Jonathan Mostow, are now credited as producers. The task finally fell to Peter Berg, who does a pretty capable job, particularly in terms of the action and spectacle.

But a funny thing happened to Hancock on the way to the cineplex. It's hard to believe the original script was this kind of loopy, schizophrenic hybrid of ideas. This feels like the product of an endless stream of writers, each of them contributing one or two ideas that have been crudely stitched together into a movie. What we have here is quite possibly the very first romantic spiritual summer superhero comedy-drama ever made.

Things start out pretty normal, as a genial summer comedy starring Will Smith. He's well-cast as Hancock, a supernatural being in the mold of Superman (super-strong, impervious to bullets, able to fly), but with the drunk, feckless demeanor of Billy Bob Thornton's memorable Bad Santa. Sure, he saves innocents and thwarts crime, but he does so while drunk, and with a general disregard for property damage and basic decorum.

I don't think Will Smith is a bad actor, necessarily, but when he's working with earnest, dramatic material, you can sometimes catch him straining for credibility. The opening third or so of Hancock just lets the guy fall into his old comfortable rhythm. You sense he's having a good time playing the part, and it's fun to watch Will Smith have fun.

Hancock saves a well-meaning PR executive (Jason Bateman, basically still playing Michael Bluth...not that you hear me complaining...), who devises a crafty plan to turn the louse from a loathed public menace into a beloved superhero. These sequences (still very early in the film!), featuring Hancock's withering, half-assed attempts at saving the city, are silly, cartoonish and frequently hilarious. (The effects are so overblown and unrealistic, they develop a charm all their own. I was reminded, in some ways, of Stephen Chow's use of larger-than-life, "fake" effects in Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle.)



There's one particularly well-realized, exciting sequence in which Hancock foils a bank robbery that's quite possibly the best single scene that Berg has ever directed. Certainly more intense and impressive than anything in his dud from last year, The Kingdom.

Then we reach Act 2, the point when the movie must place some kind of complication or obstacle before its hero, blocking his or her path to success. And Hancock takes this concept to a completely unreasonable level. I mean, I know the hero is essentially invincible but man, these guys are not screwing around. I won't get into spoiler territory, but the entire second half of this movie just pulls you in fifteen different directions all at once until you have absolutely no footing on what the hell is going on or how you're meant to feel about it.

It's always a bad sign when people have to keep running into the frame to explain what the hell is going on throughout the conclusion of your action-comedy, for starters. And actually, by the end, this movie isn't even remotely funny. Like, if you laugh at anything towards the end of Hancock, you're kind of a sick bastard.

I'm all for genre-mashing experiments, but there has to be some kind of balance. When the beginning of a movie is as broad as Hancock, it's hard to force a viewer to settle in for something much more severe and even thoughtful, no matter how much care has been put into the actual narrative arc. There are many interesting ideas floating around in Hancock, but that's about all they're doing. This movie seriously needed to pick a direction and run with it rather than try to tackle so much.

Dean and Leah, this one's for you!

Had a fun evening at Los Feliz's The Tangiers. Way to go, Dean and Leah!

I Need My Sarcasm...That's My Security Blanket, Innit?

Got linked to this article about the science of humor via Andrew Sullivan. It's a terrifying glimpse of things to come:

The real news is that the investigation of humour is belatedly becoming a science. After millennia of untested speculation by armchair thinkers, moves are afoot to bring the study of laughter into the mainstream of experimental psychology. As Rod Martin, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, notes in his textbook "The Psychology of Humor", which was published last year, humour is found in all human cultures and is ubiquitous in everyday life. His own studies suggest that on average people laugh 17.5 times per day.

Let's think this through, people...Nothing ruins a joke more than having to explain it to someone. Why, just today, I attempted to explain a visual pun to a co-worker. The image was a military carrier with a bunch of cats lined up on it. In other words, a cat carrier. Ho ho. Anyway, nothing will make you feel like a dingus faster than explaining a visual pun to someone.

"So, you see, there's this carrier..."
"I thought that was a telephone pole."
"Yeah, it does kind of...Oh, forget it."

These researchers don't just want to explain one joke. They want to explain everything that makes jokes work. This will clearly result in the creation of a "humor black hole," in which, by trying to figure out why funny things are funny, scientists will, in a split-second, render everything unfunny forever. And that, my friends, would suck for all of us, except the members of Broken Lizard, whose unfunny movies would now have significantly diminished box office competition.

Just imagine it. I tell you a really terrific dirty joke, and you respond, "Oh, well, that is exactly the sort of unexpected anecdotal denouement that I once found ribaldly amusing, because while we assume initially that the black and the white men's penises are the same size, in fact, once we arrive at the close of the discourse, we come to realize that the black man's is, truthfully, far more expansive. What a legendary wit you would have been before the great Clown-Out of '09!"

[Also, 17.5 laughs a day? Really? Canadians are some goofy motherfuckers. If you get in a solid chuckle during a workday at a typical American office, you're ahead of the game!]

WALL-E

To sum up my reaction to Pixar's WALL-E in one word: "astonishment."

I am astonished not only at the beauty and craftsmanship of WALL-E as a film, but at the very fact that such a narrative would unspool on the heels of the Walt Disney Pictures logo. Though the film is certainly appropriate for young audiences, and the children in the theater when I saw the film seemed transfixed enough, this is a piece of genuine, mature science-fiction, with all the attending Big Ideas and Complex Themes associated with that tradition. With this movie, Pixar completely steps outside of the realm of "family entertainment" to create something that is not only entertaining, whimsical and cute but also provocative and vital. It could very well end up being the year's best film.



Think I'm overstating the case here? WALL-E opens on a dystopian future Earth where all the humans have vanished and everything's coated in a thick layer of trash and grime, most of it bearing the logo of the Buy 'N Large Corporation. That's got to be a first in the Disney canon, right? Apocalyptic visions of the future in which rampant consumerism has somehow led to the end of human life on Earth?

A plucky, self-aware robot named WALL-E wanders around this hellscape picking up crash and crushing it into neat blocks. He does not speak. His only friends are a cockroach, the only living thing that seems to have survived the calamity, and the trinkets, remnants of human civilization, he finds during his travels.

Things change for WALL-E when he falls in love with another robot, EVE, who has flown to Earth on some kind of intergalactic mission. It's a tentative romance: neither WALL-E nor EVE have lips, nor can they speak, which can complicate such matters.

And it's about at this point that the tightrope Pixar is walking comes into clear relief...This is a complex love story about two robots, told without any dialogue. For pretty much the film's first half, the storytelling is entirely visual, pure animation. These characters are brought to life with such clarity, even their tiny gestures carry meaning and move the story forward.

Typically, when I hear people praise Pixar's animation, it's because of the gorgeous, eerily realistic, colorful worlds in which their stories take place. The bustling Scream Factory of Monsters, Inc., or the Paris of Ratatouille, or the scenic desert vistas of Cars. WALL-E certainly carries on this tradition.

After the film, we were discussing how accurately the animators managed to covey weightlessness when the characters are in space. All of the film's environments have been rendered in lush detail, from the brown, sand-coated Earth to the sleek, immaculate interiors of the Axiom Spacecraft. In a particularly nice touch, ancient live-action footage of the Big 'N Large CEO (played by a perfectly-chosen comic actor) urging you to shop till you drop plays on video screens in the background on Earth.

But beyond all the majesty of the settings, WALL-E works as well as it does because of the character animation. I'd say the work done here on WALL-E himself, the way his camera lens eyes constantly focus and refocus to take everything in, the way his neck extends slightly when he feels encouraged, his slight mechanized klutziness, more closely resembles the classic era of Disney Animation than anything the studio has released in my lifetime.

But WALL-E has more emotional resonance and adroit social commentary than many of Disney's animated classics (not all, but some), which sometimes used brilliant animation in the service of disposable fairy tale retreads. It's nothing less than a movie about the human race and its place on this planet, how the choices we're making right now about the way we live impact both ourselves and our environment. Plus it stars the voice of Jeff Garlin. Oh, just go see it already...

The REAL Love Guru

Dmitri, you are my hero. Most of us would not dream of calling an attractive woman who had just given us her number and telling her to look up the meaning of the term "passive aggressive." But that's because we're not the Mack of the Century.

[Link via D'Emilio]

RIP George Carlin

I know he was pretty old, and lived an amazing, full life, so this isn't really a tragedy, per se, but I'm seriously bummed about the loss of George Carlin today to heart failure. I think you could pretty easily make the case that Carlin's the greatest single stand-up comedian of all time.

No point in trying to sum up this guy's career and impact in a single blog post, so I'm just going to leave you with one of my favorite of his routines...The "stupid, full of shit, nuts" routine:



I had the pleasure of seeing Carlin perform a few times in person, including a classic "Tonight Show" performance back during my UCLA days. The man was a genius. He'll be missed.

The Dream Police

Okay, some background: I'm trying to write something about a guy trying to remember his earliest memory. So, in order to capture the realism, which is what writers do, I'm myself trying to discern my earliest memories...

I know one, probably the earliest. When I was about 4 (which would make this the summer of 19831982, I believe), I think my mother may have even been pregnant with my brother at the time, we took a trip from our home in Pennsylvania to California. We stayed at this complex in Burbank right across from an office building that had the General Lee from "Dukes of Hazard" mounted on the roof. You could, like, see this car on the top of this building from the street. And obviously, it made an impression on me, because I remember how this thing looked all these years later.

I think tonight I may have just isolated my next-earliest memory. I recall distinctly riding to school in a neighbor's car, leaning my head against the window, while The Police's "King of Pain" was playing on the radio. Because the song a single from the 1983 Synchronicity album, which would correlate neatly with the era in which I would have carpooled with this neighbor to school, I'm thinking that puts me at roughly 4-5 years old.

It's just weird how certain little things like smells or sounds can trigger these kinds of peculiar, random memories. I'm pretty sure there was nothing significant about that ride to school when this song came on. I mean, it's kind of a creepy song, maybe it spooked me a bit.



(I also recall a time, probably when I was more like 6 or 7, when I was lying in bed with the radio on - because I liked the radio on while I fell asleep when I was a kid - and I got really creeped out because fucking "Thriller" came on, and it had that part with Vincent Price cackling. Man, 6-year-old me was such a wuss...)

While we're on the subject of "King of Pain," every lyrics site on the Internet says that Sting is singing:

There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread

But it sounds nothing like that in the song. It's like, "There's a skeleton...choking on a crux bray!" Or something.

I For One Welcome Our New Musical Robot Overlords

Via Jeff at I'm Only Sleeping, we learn that the evil super-intelligent robots' plan for world domination somehow involves climbing the YouTube "Most Discussed" charts. (What type of music does a robot band play, you may ask? I'm guessing math rock. One...two...three...try to keep up.)

Some Thoughts on Baby Brains

Leah and I, along with intreped producer Conrad Quilty-Harper and cameraman John Porter, went deep inside the 1-800-AUTOPSY compound in Downtown LA to bring you the following chilling Mahalo Daily.



I can honestly say it was the only interview I have ever conducted that was interrupted by the sentence: "I'm sorry, I have to go to children's hospital to remove a baby's brain." Well, okay, the second interview...but that's still pretty rare.

I think the episode's really entertaining and informative, but we couldn't really capture the ridiculous scope of this place in one 5 minute podcast. The company, in addition to performing autopsies, also rents out equipment and space to TV and film productions replicating autopsies. And they turn coffins into couches. The guy who owns it was a forensic investigator for decades, and is just kind of grimly fascinated in this stuff, so the whole place is something of an autopsy museum. There's one room that's a replica of a 1920s embalming room. It's seriously like walking into an Alan Moore story.

ATTENTION BOING BOING TV: I love experimental animation as much as the next guy, but you should mix it up more with some visits to peculiar, real-world locations. You all could get 2 weeks of shows out of the coffin couch factory. Maybe we can put some steampunk goggles with brass fittings on one of the skeletons, if it would make you more comfortable.

I Said What What in the Mutt?

Seriously? Is there anyone out there that would pay money for a collectible Mutt Williams figure? Unlike some other people I know, I wouldn't say that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Interdimensional Blanchett Eaters was a bad movie, necessarily. But it's hardly the sort of thing I can see inspiring the level of enthusiasm necessary to invest in a statue, particularly the Shia LaBeouf character.

I know Mutt uses a sword in the movie, but he just looks extremely dippy holding it here. Like a rejected "Street Fighter" character, or a schizophrenic guy's Halloween costume.

So how much would you pay for this handsome LeBeouf semi-likeness, handcrafted from the finest Vietnamese sweat/plastics. $500,000? $28 billion? Can you believe Sideshow Collectibles will actually give you this thing for the low low price of $150? Get on it now, people. They're only making as many of these as nerds will buy! After that, they're gone forever.

Also, you've got to love their little blurb:

These outstanding 1:6 scale figures are of the highest quality and detail, ready to take life on your shelf in any dynamic pose that you desire. Medicom Toy's RAH body is one of the most articulated 12-inch figure bodies available, capable of nearly any pose that the human body can achieve.

"Any dynamic pose you desire"? "Any pose that the human body can achieve"? What the hell are people doing with these things? Before, I just thought it was hilarious and silly. Now I'm genuinely disturbed. If 12'' Mutt is anatomically collect (in perfect 1:6 scale!), I'm fully prepared to write my Congressman about this.

The Incredible Hulk

With The Incredible Hulk, Marvel Studios have proven a few things comic book movie fans already knew, but perhaps studio executives did not:

(1) More is not always better.

I'm not saying this movies should be low-key or action-less. The Incredible Hulk gets rather outsized in the second half, to great effect. But it's not overloaded with tons of characters, constant computer-enhanced spectacle or a loud, booming soundtrack. Sometimes, taking your time, developing some tension and telling a simple story well is all it takes.

(2) Continuity matters.

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of serialized comic book-style storytelling is the forging of connections between characters, creating an entire alternate reality, with its own rules. Marvel writers have spent decades fleshing out their Universe...it's ridiculous that, in translating the stories to film, they have been unable to introduce it to audiences until now.

The Incredible Hulk, even more so than this summer's triumphant Iron Man, really introduces the Marvel Universe on-screen, setting up not just a future Avengers film but a whole collection of potential connections and stories. The movie strikes just the right balance, including some references and nods to events going on outside the margins without getting too inside or complicated.

(3) The Incredible Hulk's backstory is not the stuff of high drama.

I personally think that Hulk, and his Bruce Banner side in particular, is among the least interesting mainstream comic book characters. Banner's just this kind of meek guy who's afraid of his powers. And while it's tremendous fun to see The Hulk smash things, he's basically just a buff monster. We're not talking a character the way Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne are characters. We're talking about a cipher.

Ang Lee tried to make an entire movie out of Hulk's origin, turning it into a Shakeapearean story about Fathers and Sons, when it's really just a bunch of silly nonsense about gamma rays and then a riff on Jekyll and Hyde. This new film wisely dispenses with it during the opening credits.



Though the new movie represents a complete break from Ang Lee's dull, plodding, nearly-Hulkless 2003 version, it nonetheless picks up pretty much right where that film left off. Bruce Banner (Ed Norton), doomed to transform into the out-of-control, violent Hulk whenever he gets angry, has fled to Brazil in the hopes of finding a rare flower that might cure his condition. Back in the U.S., Banner's girlfriend Betty (Liv Tyler) has moved on with her life. Her father, General Ross (William Hurt), has enlisted the aid of a notorious British soldier, Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), to help him find the Hulk. (Ross wants to capture Banner, naturally, in the hopes of turning his Hulkness into a weapon).

Most of the film is taken up with this chase, with Ross and Blonsky pursuing Banner across the globe. A variety of not-particularly-convincing circumstances will slowly turn Blonsky from a normal man into the monstrous Abomination, leading to an epic final showdown in the streets of Harlem.

The film's major strength is in its simplicity. None of the technology or science is ever explained, because that stuff doesn't matter. "This machine will cure you from Hulking Out, or maybe it wont. Let's find out!" And because Incredible Hulk doesn't bother with an origin story, and keeps the narrative strongly focused on the chase, and the larger relationship between Banner and the Rosses, there's plenty of time for (1) large-scale, extended action scenes and (2) development of the Hulk's world and environment without rushing everything.

The decision to open the action in South America, in particular, really pays off. The movie's just visually interesting, even when there's no Hulk or explosions. Banner himself can be something of a blank (though Norton does a nice job of expressing his inner angst without getting too emo), but the world he occupies is very inviting and compelling on its own terms. Director Louis Leterrier has a tendency to show off a bit, throwing in a lot of visual noise and flair unnecessarily, but he nevertheless has made a good-looking, fast-paced film, and knows how to put an action scene together.

The only time things really slow down is when Tyler's Betty Ross takes center-stage. Zak Penn's script pretty much lets her down here, setting her up as a brilliant scientist and then giving her essentially nothing to solve and even less to do. It's essentially the same part Tyler played in Armageddon - the girl who really really loves the hero - and her boredom with the part is palpable at times. (Her one real bonding scene with the Hulk reminded me of some of Naomi Watts' work in King Kong, only I actually think this film plays slightly less ridiculous.)