Oh Really?

Last Thursday's new episode of "The Office", if you haven't seen it, had an interesting secondary side story. While Michael and Dwight were out of the office on the main A story mission, the rest of the office engaged in an episode-long debate to determine if multiple Academy Award winning actress and former Karate Kid Hillary Swank was "hot". It was an interesting debate with notable points being brought up by both sides (Kevin distinguishing whether someone is "hot" with whether he would have sex with them or not, an elaborate overhead presentation analyzing the structure of her face by Oscar, a spirited personal speech in defense by Stanley).

For me, her body of work, her sense of style, her attitude, and her obvious Oscar hardware places her strictly in the category of handsome women. Thus, as a handsome woman, she can never be considered within the traditional definition of "hot". That is to not say she's unattractive; she's just beyond categorization within those traditional boundaries of female ascetics. Can she grace fashion magazines? Sure. Can she be admired for her style and grace? Absolutely. Can the average man rub one out to a naked picture of her? It doesn't seem impossible. But is she traditionally hot? Most definitely not.

Now that my two cents on that issue have been given, it brings us to the other interesting thing about that episode. During my brief flirtation with full time work after college, I put in some time as a glorified temp at a Korean Human Resources firm. It was essentially like "The Office", except Korean, and totally devoid of all humor or enjoyment. Being an all Korean office environment, the TV water cooler talk would more often then not center around the only two shows on prime time network television featuring Korean actors: "Lost"(Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim) and "Grey's Anatomy" (Sandra Oh). One day, the discussion of Sandra Oh came down to whether she was attractive and the response was similarly polarizing. Roughly half the office found her to be a fine, attractive Korean woman, while the other claimed manly features and general horseface-ness (a few nationalistic souls found her unattractive for not looking Korean enough). This decisive split is also mirrored among discussion with my friends. I would imagine any place where humans congregate a similar conflict would arise.

What's my opinion on the matter? It's a complicated answer that is beyond just immediately playing the handsome woman card. There is an obvious line where a woman is handsome and where a woman is just unattractive by traditional female standards. Sandra Oh, precariously straddles that line. In my opinion she appears to be at times an attractive woman trapped in a handsome woman's body. In terms of the style and attitude that constitute handsomeness in a woman, she doesn't have it. She carries herself on like a traditionally attractive woman, rather than with the classy, dignified air of a true handsome woman (of course six years of "Arli$$" will rob anyone of their class and dignity). However in some cases like "Grey's Anatomy" and "Sideways", she can truly take on a the role of an empowered handsome woman that actually exudes attraction. If I had to make a call right now, figuring in my exposure to all her previous work(including seeing her topless in the stripper epic "Dancing at the Blue Iguana"), I'll lean to attractive handsome woman; but of a more non-traditional handsome woman mold.

Where do you stand?

Sentimental Hogwash

If you haven't noticed already, a certain 44th President is having the "best day ever". When I was hired as possibly the first Asian teenager at my local A&P in high school, all I was given was a name tag and a quick tutorial, this was a little bigger. If you really think about it, given the extent of global media coverage and the age we live in, at this moment he is quite possibly the most popular person in the history of mankind. Going by all the people glued to the TVs at school today, you'd think it was the last episode of MASH (now there's appointment television; you could in theory get two Obama inaugurations, but only one series finale of "MASH.").

With all the attention and historic images that have been pouring in all day, the most striking one to me surprisingly was old Dick Cheney in a wheelchair.

Seeing the now former VP in that state reminded of another notable, bald, wheelchair bound, curmudgeon:
I'm not sure what Mr. Cheney's post Vice Presidential plans include, but I wouldn't put taking over the savings and loan and creating a crooked, hedonistic slum town known as "Cheneyville" beyond him.

As for you Mr. President, I'm willing to give you a pass on this $150 million dollar multi day Obamafest in the middle of a growing recession; on account of history and the expected national catharsis resulting from the end of the previous administration. You can rub elbows with Jay-Z, have your parades, and attend your ten balls (infact by the 10th ball you should be like Fonzie in that episode where he had to win a dance contest with Joanie and pretend you're all danced out and then wow everyone with a crazy Fonzie dance).

However, Wednesday morning I expect you to get down to some serious work.

"So do you think they got shrunk down, or is it just a giant sack?"

The early months of a new year are a strange and fascinating time when it comes to movie releases. The emerging award season and the general slowdown in business of theaters nationwide lead to an unpredictable movie release landscape. On one hand you have your prestige pictures; some held over from the previous month, others entering wide release to capture the crest of the Oscar buzz. On the other hand you have the glut of held over cinematic trash from the previous year that the studios are hoping to quietly and unceremoniously dump out at multiplexes during the slowest time of the season. There is no other time of the year that comes close to the sort of wild cinematic clashes where potential Oscar winners compete head to head with potential Razzie winners for the hearts and wallets of the ambivalent movie going public.

Now while I haven't see the new Kevin James vehicle "Paul Blart: Mall Cop", I'm sure most will agree with me that it is closer to the latter Razzie category of January pictures than the former. The whole movie just screams cheap January laughs. You know what you're going to get when you buy your tickets to "Mall Cop", about two hours of: a fat guy looking ridiculous on a Segway (lol!), a fat guy taking his petty job as a mall cop far too seriously (haha!), a fat guy falling down a lot (ho ho!), fat guy saving the day at the end and getting the hot girl (rofl!). Just to ensure the laugh factor they slapped on a goofy mustache (hilarity), gave the main guy a silly name (Blart? That rhymes with fart) and set the whole thing in Jersey (the only state whose setting itself can be a joke). The whole thing looks by the book and destined for brief, inconsequential, quick change run in the theaters. I should hate it, or at the very least not even be thinking all that much about it, however as you can tell this is not the case.

I have a personal pantheon of watchability interest when it comes to movies. At the very top is the movie I am willing to spend money on in theaters to see ("The Dark Knight"), right below that is a movie I am willing to rent a copy on (I just recently rented 'The Philadelphia Story"), below that tier is a movie I am willing to watch on TV even with commercials (any time they play "Starship Troopers" on TNT I have to stick it out), under that are commercial free movies on premium channels (like the time I saw "Threesome". Was it a particularly good movie? No, but it was commercial free and had some nudity), and finally there are movies I have no interest in seeing unless paid too (oh, how about "The Sex in the City Movie"). This wacky version of "Die Hard" should be in that bottom rung of watchability interest with such similar January/February fat guy comedy releases as "Code Name: The Cleaner" and the Larry the Cable Guy epic "Witless Protection". However, I'm don't find myself automatically disgusted by "Mall Cop". While it is no where near the top of my pantheon, I might go as far to watch it with commercials on TBS a year or two down the line, perhaps even rent it if my Netflix queue gets a little light.

There's really no concrete reason why "Mall Cop" seems mildly amusing to me. It's sort of like when Elaine wanted to see "Sack Lunch" over the "English Patient". Sometimes you just want to see a movie about a family in a giant sack over some overwrought Oscar bait. Between global economic meltdown, Somali pirates, the fighting in Gaza, and ongoing wars abroad, the world's in a pretty shitty place right now. Sometimes I just want to see a fat guy falling down over "Doubt".

And if I am going to see a fat guy fall down, you really can't get better these days than Kevin James. From all the "King of Queens" episodes I've seen on planes and rained out ballgames, the guy is quite agile for a big man, like a Kirby Puckett or Bam Bam Bigelow. He definitely has some notworthy physical comedy talents. In the end isn't the only real thing that separates the fluff films of Kevin James and the "culturally significant" work of noted heavyweight silent film star Fatty Arbuckle is about seven decades of nostalgia (and a murder trial). A quality fat guy falling is a fat guy falling.


Note: As of the conclusion and posting of this entry, the latest weekend Box Office returns seems to indicate that a great number of the movie going crowded preferred some lighter fat guy fair. The previous week's number one film it beat out? The critically acclaimed "Gran Torino".

Montalgone

Remember that scene in "Blue Velvet" where Dennis Hooper's Frank is meeting up with his friend Ben played by Dean Stockwell and he keeps telling Ben throughout how he is so impressively "fuckin' suave" and how much of a "suave motherfucker" he is?

That about sums up my definition of the late Ricardo Montalbon. The man was so goddamn suave.

His unique brand of ultra smooth, borderline caricatured, Latin accented, classiness was the driving presence that defined for me, among others, the greatest Star Trek movie of all time, in the best Naked Gun movie of all time, one of the best Freakazoid! villains of all time, a decent Spy Kids sequal, and a relatively tolerable Taco Bell commercial.

Roger Ebert has a personal "Stanton-Walsh Rule" which states that no movie featuring either character actors Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh can be altogether bad (apparently with the exception of Wild Wild West). In that sense I can probably say that for me any work was always a little better with a dash of Montalban.

Damn, that's suave!

This Week in Handome Women News

In the great varied tableau of the human species, there are few specimens more fascinating and complex as the handsome woman. It is a description that eludes concrete definition. Is female handsomeness based merely on physical appearance, or is there a certain air and manner that exudes handsomeness, or is it mix of both? The label can be both insulting and complimentary. It can be interpreted as describing someone as masculine, attractive, different, refined, aggressive, strong, strange (all of which are subjectively positive or negative qualities depending on who you ask). To the men I ask, would you rather be with a handsome woman or an average looking woman? To the women I ask, would you rather be a handsome woman or an average looking woman?

The reason I've had handsome women on the brain lately is a weird confluence of recent circumstances regarding some of the greatest handsome woman actresses of all time from the past to the present:

The other day I watched the romantic comedy classic "The Philadelphia Story" with, the woman who defined cinematic handsome women, Katharine Hepburn, in the lead. It was a pretty solid piece of old school screwball romance that can't really even begin to work in today's age. I, however, had to suspend some disbelief that Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart would be so mesmerized by Hepburn's character. It must be her iconoclastic, strong will and independent spirit (which in the context of the time, makes her a really pionnerring character) because it certainly wasn't her looks. While the physical beauty is more average and workmanlike than unbearably handsome, she wears perhaps the most unattractive ensamble of clothing for a film not intended to be science fiction. A hideous calavcade of navel height trousers, gigantic man shirts, puffy robes, and shoulder pads aplenty work to completely deny her any additional astetic help. But maybe it's her personality we're suppose to fall in love with...or something like that.

The woman who carried the great handsome woman mantle of Hepburn through the last quarter century is the immoral Glenn Close who, as the round the clock advertisements on FX has drilled into your head, will be returning for a second season of "Damages"; one of those many "best show on TV" Cable serieses that are killing network programming. Call me crazy but I found her traditionally attractive enough for Fatal Attraction to be plausible, but as the years passed and she become more refined, she has truely embraced her handsome womanhood. It's a shame that the usually handsome woman friendly Academy has denied her that elusive Oscar (I feel like she should be allowed to trade in all five of her nominations for an equilvent Oscar). I doubt all the Emmy awards she'll win for "Damages" will ever fill that Oscar shaped hole in her heart.

Bringing it all around is the current piece of well crafted Oscar bait, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". I knew modern day handsome woman star Cate Blanchett was one of the main stars but I was quite surprised when my friend told me that other contemporary handsome woman star actress Tilda Swinton had a supporting role in the film as well. This is essentially the handsome woman equilvent of having Robert De Niro and Al Pachino in Godfather II (at the height of their power, not exploiting them in their diminished twilight years). I would say Swinton is the more handsome of the two in terms of looks and attitude, Cate's handsomeness can be quite curtailed if you actually put her in a dress and "pretty her up". Of course to tangentially tie it all back to the beginning if Cate does get any Oscar love for her role, she can put it next to her Best Supporting Actress Statute she won for "The Aviator" for playing Katharine Hepburn.

So Keep Your Love Lockhorns

As we approach the first full week of the New Year, I'm sure many a resolutions are starting to feel the strain if not already collapsed all together. In my years as a serial resolution maker, I've had some that didn't even make it past "Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve." While I've found that most promises I make with myself are inherently doomed since I have no problems disappointing myself, I still on occasion attempt a small personal challenge here and there just for the novelty in seeing how long I can keep it up. It's sort of like playing an old 80s retro arcade game like Pac-Man or Donkey Kong; there's really no end to it (outside of the game's programming collapsing upon itself), you just see how long you can maintain.

It is in that bold, kamikaze-like spirit of New Years' Resolution making that I decided to go through with my long considered plan to create a blog that tracks the daily fights and squabbles of my my all time favorite comic strip, "The Lockhorns". You can keep the eternal melancholy of "Peanuts", the office jokes of "Dilbert", the lasagna fueled antics of "Garfield", the unrelenting meddling of "Mary Worth", the edgy racial politics of the "Boondocks"; for my money the "Lockhorns" never fail to deliver. Sure it's the same 10 or so jokes about unhappy married life and the difference between men and women, but you are guaranteed to always get the joke in every panel and its guaranteed to be at least an acknowledgable joke in the traditional sense. Despite my enjoyment of "The Lockhorns'" unique, classic brand of comedy; I don't think I've ever really looked at the loveless dynamics of this miserable marriage. So for the rest of the year I will, hopefully, give a daily play-by-play look at the eternal struggle that is the Lockhorns' marriage and give a tally of who's actually coming out ahead in this unholiest of unions.

So if you're looking for the kind of laughs that can only result from watching the petty, daily arguments of two ugly charactures of American domestic married life, one panel at a time, then look no further than "Lockhorn vs. Lockhorn" during your daily journeys through the blogosphere.

Of course, half the fun is wondering how long I'll be able to keep a daily journal up before my procrastination overwhelms me.

Let's see what Vince has to Offer!

I know Christmas ended over a week ago but I was pleasantly surprised by a wonderful, belated, holiday gift while roaming through the late night channels. My old friend Vince Offer was back making the late night infomercial rounds; and this time he was offering me and recession reeling America a means to quickly "slap our troubles away".

The commercial has all the classic Vince trademarks captivated America with the "ShamWow": the sustained sense of urgency, the quick talking, the hyper aggressive selling, the demonstrations with uncanny dexterity, the insultingly condescending tone, the constantly moving camera, the ridiculous New York accent. While I still find the "ShamWow' commercial to be more hypnotically compelling, the almost magical abilities of the product also contributed a lot. The "Slap Chop" commercial really shows Vince at the height of his powers, since it's really his pure strength of personality that's selling the product (the chopper itself is a fairly unoriginal item that doesn't really distinguish itself all that much from the other hand choppers). One can only imagine what kind of Offer-less world we'd be living in had his bizarre lawsuit against the church of Scientology actually panned out or his self financed "Underground Comedy Movie" not proved to be such a massive failure that he had to return to shilling consumer products. Billy Mays is probably hearing footsteps.

Some highlights from the commercial include:

"You love salad! You hate making it! You know you hate making salad! That's why you don't have any salad in your diet."

"Stop having a boring tuna. Stop having a boring life...You're gonna have an exciting life now."

"You're gonna love my nuts!"

"It pops open like that, like a butterfly."

"Life's hard enough as it is. You don't want to cry anymore."

"We're gonna make America skinny again, one slap at a time!"

...plus if you order now, they'll throw in the "Graty" ("Fettuccine, linguine, martini, bikini").

End of the Year Vic-tacular!

Well, there were some doubters, including myself, but the December 31st trifecta is now officially complete.

Now as a special gift to all you loyal readers out there (and even illiterate fans of the blog), here's a brief, hastily assembled, little clip show showcasing some of the highlights from our 130 entries this year (do you remember when some of these were posted?).

Take it away Zombies...

J'Accuse!: Mad Hatter in "Perchance to Dream"

For Christmas, my sister got me the complete "Batman: The Animated Series" DVD collection. Since then I've been steadily making my way through all 107 or so episodes of the series (although I personally don't consider the later "New Batman Adventures" episodes to truly be a part of the original series). All, I've got to say is, it's pretty damn awesome. The shows are just as great and I remembered them growing up; and I find myself appreciating some of the more mature subtleties that I never got as a kid (like the suspicious robot designer in "Heart of Steel" is named Rossum). It's really an impressive feat to consider what the creators accomplished within the narrow constraints (budget wise, time frame wise, censorship wise) of a Saturday morning children's cartoon and how they made such an actual lasting contribution to the overall Batman canon that exceeds even the contributions of all the blockbuster movies combined. I look at the dedicated work of art that was the Batman series and then at the prefabricated, re-translated, Japanese, program-length commercials that pass for Saturday morning programming these days and I weep for the children of today.

Having given my little gushing, fanboy, introduction on the matter, I still have to call a "J'Accuse!" on the Mad Hatter in the above titled episode. Now, obviously a Saturday morning superhero cartoon requires a heavy degree of suspension of disbelief and artistic license. Despite all the spectacular explosions and gunfire, nobody, including heroes and villains ever die, let alone get shot. There are episodes where goons literally fire machine guns directly at Batman and manage to hit everything around him. The time and distance continuity in the show makes "24" look like a real time documentary. One also has to wonder when Gotham City will ever re-evaluate a revolving door system at Arkham that allows criminally insane villains to escape on a weekly basis. I am willing to accept all these things; however, every once in a while something crosses a line that doesn't quite register with me.

One such example is in the episode "Perchance to Dream". First off, the episode is actually one of my all time top 5 Batman episodes and one of the first ones I watched when I got the DVDs. If you haven't seen it, I suggest you check out the link, lest you be spoiled one of the most interesting Batman episode twists of all time.

So the basic premise is that Batman gets knocked out while chasing some henchmen only to wake up from a supposed nightmare in his bed. However, once he wakes up, he is shocked to realize that both his parents are alive, there is no Batcave, he's engaged to Selina Kyle aka Catwoman, and that there is another Batman. He initially is convinced by his doctor friend that his previous life was just a dissociative hallucination and that everything up to that point has essentially been a nightmare he was woken from. Batman, however, later realizes this is wrong when he suddenly notices he is completely unable comprehend printed words. Deducing that he must be in a dream since the part of brain that controls dreaming is opposite the part of the mind that controls cognitive reading functions (never verified if this is actually true), he confronts the other "Batman" who, after a struggle, turns into the Mad Hatter. The Mad Hatter, predating the Martrix, explains that he himself is a dream figment and that Batman is trapped in his dream machine. The Hatter was willing to give Batman everything he wanted in this fabricated world, if only to incapacitate him in the real world. Seeing no obvious means of waking up, Batman attempts suicide by jumping off a tower in an attempt to shock himself into waking up. He does and he finds himself hooked up to the machine right after the events from the beginning of the episode. He quickly gets up and subdues the Mad Hatter and his gang. Great episode.

There's just one problem, however. Why didn't the Mad Hatter just kill Batman? Or at the very least imprison him so that he won't immediately capture you after he wakes up? You've somehow managed to, by an extreme twist of luck, to get a jump on Batman, but instead of finishing him off or tying him up, you take him directly into your headquarters into an overly elaborate dream machine which appears you have to monitor constantly. Just throw him off a bridge or something! The Man Hatter's entire motivation, he claims was to trap Batman in a dream world so as to incapacitate him forever. You mean like, I don't know, putting a bullet in his head?

In addition to not killing or tying him down, the Mad Hatter never even bothered to TAKE OFF BATMAN'S MASK! You'd think the closely held secret identity of Batman would be something of interest to any one of this villains. There was even an episode where someone found out and attempted to auction it off to the Joker, Penguin, and Two-Face ("The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne"). However, the Mad Hatter is not concerned with such petty matters. Even assuming some sort of thieves honor in not removing the mask, wouldn't you think from a purely practical standpoint, that the dream machine's mind controlling helmet would fit and work better if there wasn't a big Bat mask to get in the way?

I guess that's why they call him "Mad".

As great as Batman is, he has by far one of the easiest rogue's galleries in comicdom. The lot of them are usually just crazed, non-powered humans, with easily exploitable crippling psychological obsessions (plants, jokes, coinflipping). You know what would happen if Batman and Superman decided to trade cities? Superman would throw every villain in Gotham into the sun and Batman would be dead in a week. Imagine them talking shop before hand?:

Superman: Watch out for Darkseid, the immortal, god-like tyrant of his own planet with his own personal space armada.
Batman: Be careful with Two-Face...he's got two faces...

It's obviously two different worlds so comparing them is just a futile exercise. In the end, Batman is Batman and Superman is Superman; and it's the reltable humanness of Batman stories that make it far superior to the overpowered spectacle of Superman. However, as to the Mad Hatter's actions in that particular episode, all I have to say is "J'Accuse!"

I Wear My Sunglasses in Ads

Back in my undergrad years, I saw this PBS Frontline documentary called "The Merchants of Cool" in one of my assorted media studies classes. It was an interesting look at how advertisers and marketers were distorting and manipulating 21st century youth culture through massive commercialization. Exploiting the unprecedented profitability of the largest, richest generation of teenagers in American history, these so-called Madison Ave "merchants of cool" would intensively study and analyze emerging trends among them; then co-opt it, process it, repackage it, and sell it right back. The documentary argued that this effectively destroyed the ability of today's youth to develop an authentic youth culture of their own, but rather have their notions of what is "cool" dictated by ad wizards and market profilers.

The documentary was made around 2001 so it is a bit dated by now; however the message is still highly relevant. In fact, with the rise of the Internet and concepts like viral marketing and social networking, advertising's effect on contemporary youth culture is probably exponentially both more powerful and subtle at the same time. I guess if you're one of those anti-commercialism, Naomi Klein's "No Logo", types this may all send a shudder down your spine. As for me, mass commercialization and junk culture are the concepts that pay me (it's Victor Sells Out after all). More TV shows made from commercials and soft drinks challenging rock stars, please!

In stark contrast to these complicated times, if you were an ad executive in the 80's to early 90's, it seems that all you had to do to co-opt this prized, abstract concept known as "cool" was to slap some shades on your brand's mascot. Thinking back to all the advertising icons I can remember from around that period, every character that wanted to exhibit some sort of coolness or modernity had a pair of dark shades on. In retrospect it was a cheap, hollow gesture, but it sure fooled the me as a pre-adolescent. Looking back, nearly all my doodles of figures had the trademark dark sunglasses in inject them with instant coolness and relieve me of the burden of drawing complicated eyes. It's like the scene in the Simpsons episode with Poochie, where the show executives are evaluating the drawing of the hip new, "Itchy and Scratchy" character Poochie and feel that there is something missing until the animator gives him dark sunglasses. They later parody the joke when the Simpsons introduce hip, new, Roy (one of the greatest one shot Simpson characters ever):
Some other real life "cool" mascots of the 80's-early 90's:

Cool Spot

Say what you may about his 1993 video game being a hollow piece of product placement, it's actually a halfway decent game in both looks and game play. It was definitely superior to that crappy "Yo! Noid" NES game.

The Energizer Bunny

A one gimmick character that has been going and going and going for almost two decades now. It's the shades that give the bunny that extra bit of chic, quiet arrogance that's made it such a lasting icon. Notice the contrast between that and the manic, emotionally shallow, hard sell persona of Energizer's less successful mascot: "Jacko".

Spuds MacKenzie

There's a reason why you can find plenty of pictures and youtube clips of "Spuds Mackenzie" commercials and little to no Internet information on his then-rival beer party dog "Alex the Dog" (aka "Alex from Stroh's" from Tone Loc's "Funky Cold Medina"); Alex never rocked the Ray-bans like Spuds.

California Raisins

In my opinion one of the worst, insidiously awful advertising mascots ever created. While they may have been bafflingly popular in the 80s (ubiquitous commercials, merchandise, toys, shirts, an NES game, FOUR studio albums, etc.) I can't imagine that they convinced a single person to buy actual raisins from California; the whole purpose behind the commercials.

Chester Cheetah

There is no way that the uniformly inferior Frito-Lay Cheetos could have maintained their competitive market position over the mascot-less Wise's Cheez Doodles had it not been for the flashy, style over substance attitude of everyone's favorite cheese puff addict.

Joe Camel

No advertising figure epitomized sunglasses wearing advertising cool like smooth Joe Camel. No wonder parents' groups shut him down; look how awesome he made smoking! Personally, if I were a children's advocate, I would have attacked his obscene, obviously penis shaped face as well.

Mac Tonight

Still the stuff of nightmares.

J'Accuse!: Grandpa Joe

I noticed that we are in the waning final days of this month (and this year overall) and I am a bit off my usual self imposed ten post a month quota. Seeing that, like everybody else, I'm hustling to get all my shit packed and done by the end of the year. So, rejoice lucky blog readers, from here on out it's going to be some strenuous two-a-days (possibly three) to hopefully make up the deficits. I assure you all however, that my trademark commitment to quality and blogging excellence will still be maintained despite the rushed schedule. I actually did have a few ideas in the hopper that I was planning on getting to before all the testing and the failing and the crying sidetracked me for the better part of the month.

One such thing I was getting around to was starting up my series of personal "J'Accuse!"'s. For all of those people out there not familiar with Emile Zola and the whole "Dreyfus Affair", basically it's in reference to famous published open letter by Emile Zola in 1898 where he called out the French government over unfairly imprisoning a Jewish army officer for treason. As the wikipedia article says, the phrase "J'Accuse" (french for "I accuse") has become a common expression for essentially calling shenanigans on something. That's about all I know about the Dreyfus Affair (probably just enough to get a low value Jeopardy question right about it), if you really want to know more it can't hurt to put "The Life of Emile Zola" on your Netflix queue (best picture winner 1937!). So basically as Emile Zola called shenanigans on the anti-semetic French government, so will I call my own personal shenanigans on the random pop culture esoterica that bother me.

This leads me to the subject of Grandpa Joe (played by Jack Albertson) from the classic 1971 film, "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory".

Here's the situation. You've got kind-hearted Charlie Bucket, his toiling mother, and their four bedridden grandparents. They live in a home that appears to be just a slight step up from a makeshift fort of empty refrigerator boxes. The father is dead so the mother and Charlie slave everyday doing laundry and delivering papers, respectively, just to eek out mere subsistence. They are further trapped in their dire life of unofficial serfdom by the ludicrous burden of supporting the four worthless, bedridden, elderly, grandparents. Charlie is so poor, he has to scrimp and save for a year to support the simple "luxury" of buying a single chocolate bar.

My problem with Grandpa Joe begins when the deserving Charlie finds the fifth and final winning Golden Ticket to meet Willy Wonka at his factory and comes home with the news. After verifying the validity of the ticket, Charlie asks Grandpa Joe, who has been bedridden for 20 years, to be his guest to the factory. Motivated by the passion of the young Charlie, Grandpa Joe, after some initial struggling, manages to get up from his bed. He then somehow manages to shake off the muscular atrophy and bed sores of twenty years of immobility to get into a full song and dance routine!

If I were Charlie or even his mother, at the point after which Grandpa Joe completes his little "I've Got A Golden Ticket" number, I would cold cock him right in his smug old face. This fucking goldbricker, for twenty years has been holding out while his grandson and daughter worked themselves into exhaustion! How does he even sleep at night? You think he would have pulled off a similar miraculous recovery if Charlie came home with a copy of the local want ads with an opening for a job at Willy Wonka's factory? Would he have jitterbugged around the room singing "I've Got A Job Prospect"? Of course not! He would have sat on his lazy ass like he did for the past 20 years, feigning paralysis. If this is the case with Grandpa Joe, I suspect maybe the three other grandparents aren't really as enfeebled as they appear to be. But, atleast they never were proven in the movie to be total phonies.

In addition, if I was the mom I'd be wondering what exactly is Grandpa Joe bringing to the table that Charlie would pick him over her. It's obvious that Grandpa has some sort of undue influence on Charlie to have him initially select him over his poor mother. Who has almost single handedly supported this burdensome family for all these years? Who gave birth and raised him? Who previously devoted an entire musical number in the movie to him? Who has the confirmed ability to walk normally? Notice how Grandpa just swoops right in there and without even considering deferring to anyone else starts singing about "his golden ticket".

While I do love this movie and find that recent sham of a remake to somehow manage to be both creepy and uninteresting at the same time; I will always have a slight problem in the back of my mind every time Grandpa Joe miraculously gets up and does his crazy little number. Obviously there is a high degree of suspension of disbelief to be granted in a movie with Oompa Loompas, psychedelic boat rides, landscapes made of candy, blueberry children, and flying elevators; but I just can't give it up for Grandpa Joe that easily. How can I support this monster of a man who sat back and watched his loving family work themselves ragged while he had the ability to be of help the whole time? Grandpa Joe, I'll still enjoy your song (in fact it's probably my favorite song from the movie) and be glad that you and Charlie didn't get chopped to pieces in the fizzy lifting drinks room, but as for your goldbricking actions I simply have to say "J'Accuse!"

What's the deal with Basic Instinct?

A few days back I found myself re-watching "Basic Instinct"; the commercial zenith of what I like to consider, my all time favorite director, Paul Verhoeven's classic "American films period". While watching this iconic cornerstone of 90s pop culture, I suddenly noticed for the first time an unexpected connection with another 90's cultural touchstone: "Seinfeld".

I discovered no less than 5 actors in the film who have later on appeared on the series. This interesting collection of connected character actors ranged from the extremely obvious to the trivially obscure. I guess it shouldn't be all that shocking with a long running series with the large and diverse cast of supporting characters and one off guest actors (the list of women playing Jerry's weekly girlfriends alone is a varied who's who of notable 90s ladies from metal babe Tawny Kitaen to pre-fame Courtney Cox to the ever mousy Jeanine Garofalo) like"Seinfeld"; similarly there may be a flick out there with 6 eventual guest actors on "Friends". However, for now, I have yet to notice any such coincidences.

I guess I should mention that the list below probably contains some moderate spoilage for anyone who hasn't seen "Basic Instinct" (and I guess to a far lesser extent certain episodes of "Seinfeld"). Also for those people who haven't seen "Basic Instinct" yet: shame on you; it is one of the great cinematic documents of the fascinating,wild, confusing times of the early 90s, as the decade tried to forge itself a new identity separate from the 80s. In addition, for all those eternally teased by "Big Love", you actually get to see Jeanne Tripplehorn naked (and about 15 years younger). How can you lose?

Wayne Knight
"Newman"

This is the obvious one everybody remembers, and what I thought until recently was the only Seinfeld cast member in the film. Aside from his reoccurring role of Jerry's antagonist Newman, this is the most memorable Wayne Knight role (just edging out his evil Dennis Nedry role in Jurassic Park). That uncomfortable, fat, sweaty scene of him along with the other detectives interrogating Sharon Stone will (for better or for worse) be forever linked to the movie's infamous beaver shot.

Daniel von Bargen
"Mr. Kruger"

Prolific character actor Daniel von Bargen played Det. Nielson, the asshole Internal Affairs detective that had it out for Michael Douglas's character. He later gets murdered and everyone suspects Douglas did it. Of course I will always remember him as George's idiot boss Mr. Kruger. Every one of his four guest appearances was a home run. This is further supported by the fact that every one of his episodes made it onto Andrew U's definitive top 50 George moments: "The Slicer"(#43), "The Maid"(#39), "The Burning" (#28), "The Strike"(#23). Personally, my dream job scenario would be working for a boss as clueless and utterly negligent about the quality of my work as Kruger.

James Rebhorn
"D.A. Hoyt"

It was really no shocker when I noticed Hall of Fame "That Guy" James Rebhorn was in both "Basic Instinct" and "Seinfeld", he's basically been in every movie and television series for the last 25 years. Look up "douchey, white collar, antagonist in suit" in the dictionary and you get James Rebhorn. In "Basic Instinct" he played the only mildly douchey Dr. McElwaine, a police psychologist who questions Michael Douglas's guilt after the above Det. Nielson is found dead. On the TV side, Rebhorn played the pivotal role of the prosecuting D.A. who puts Jerry and the gang in prison for violating a good Samaritan law on the two part series finale of the show. Douchey indeed.

Stephen Tobolowsky
"Tor Eckman"

Another giant among "That Guy" character actors, Stephen Tobolowsky has cornered the market on playing bespectacled, dorky, clueless, losers. The man's got so many memorable one shot characters from Bridget Fonda's sleazy boss in "Single White Female", Ned Ryerson in "Groundhogs Day", to the flashback of Sammy Jankis in "Memento". For me the quintessential "Tobolowsky character" and everything he embodies can be summed up in that scene at the end of the trailer for "Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde" ("Mr. Monkey wants to play"). In "Basic Instinct" be plays exactly to his egghead type as a special criminal profiler who is brought into hypothesize on the identity of the ice pick killer, much to everyone's annoyance. His "Seinfeld" character was as the holistic healer who George goes to after suffering what he thought was a heart attack. Interestingly, it's a little against the usual type for him as he's more of a goofy (non-bespectacled) hippie than the usual nerdish figure.

Jack McGee
"Ralph"

I claim no credit (nor do I really want to) for being as astute and extensive a "Seinfeld" fan to have noticed Jack McGee. I ended up learning about his credits when I was on IMDB trying to verify if Tobolowsky was actually in the "Heart Attack" episode. His role in "Basic Instinct" is just listed as "Sheriff" so I'm not actually sure where he came in. I think he was the random police officer (or I guess sheriff) at the end of the film that gives the main detectives more evidence that all the murders may have been masterminded by Jeanne Tripplehorn. His role in Seinfeld is equally juicy, as he plays "Ralph" (at least he had a name in this one), the surly construction worker that George borrows the jackhammer from to rescue his buried Phil Rizzuto keychain from a filled in pothole (in the aptly titled episode "The Pothole").

I Saw Mommy Getting Shot By Santa Claus

Further contributing to 2008's strong case as one of the worst years ever, Christmas 08 is now officially ruined by this horrific Santa-related mass killing coming out of the west coast. It's some seriously fucked up shit; especially the descriptions of how it all began:

The massacre began when an 8-year-old girl answered Pardo's knock at the door. Pardo, carrying what appeared to be a large present, pulled out a handgun and shot her in the face, then began shooting indiscriminately as about 25 partygoers tried to flee, police said.

The girl thankfully survived, but definitely, hands down, the absolute worst way to break it to a child that there isn't a Santa Claus.

So in terms of totally inappropriate pop culture reference to sum up this horrible tragedy I'm thinking:

Silent Night Deadly Night?

Weird Al's "The Night Santa Went Crazy"

or just plain...

"Bad Santa"

"Silent Night Deadly Night" will always be the wittiest title and I do appreciate the straight forward description of "Bad Santa" (I'm pretty sure there's a good chance that the Post or the Daily News will lead off with that gem of a headline tomorrow); but I'm personally going to have to go with "The Night Santa Went Crazy". Aside from it taking place in the North Pole, the events are eerily prophetic (Santa snaps, starts killing indiscriminately). I was also going to include a Xanta Klaus reference, but I thought it might have been too soon.

In any case, I'm sure this news has definitely harshed everyone's Christmas mellow. But, chins up, only a week or so until a brand spanking new year. Until then can we still enjoy that classic scene from "Silent Night Deadly Night 2"?

"Communism was just a red herring..."

My little, borderline excessive, exploration into Oscar casting a few days back got me thinking. If we are indeed headed towards a new era of light comedies filled with past-Oscar winners a la the disaster flicks of the 1970s, what sort of casting combinations and scenarios are possible? Outside of some sort of sweeping, extended length epic or elaborate casino heist movie; how else would a Hollywood studio reasonably insert all these big stars and their bigger egos into one feature film?

Two words: Clue remake.

The Clue set up is perfectly tailored for maximum ensemble filmmaking. You have six fully developed, totally unique characters, all working equally together to create a murder mystery. That's six opportunities for all-star, Oscar winning casting, not counting possible secondary characters like the Butler or Mr. Boddy or whatever random characters that could be shoehorned in. Despite the heavy subject matter of homicide, the tone, as with nearly all murder mysteries, is lighthearted and fun. It's a perfect piece of cinematic fluff to throw out around the holiday time. If they polish it up enough, it may even get a random pity Oscar nod or two of its own. It's a can't miss situation.

Apparently there's even some historical precedence for an all star murder mystery movie. There were a string of star packed Agatha Christie adaptations from the 70s to the early 80s like "Murder on the Orient Express" (3 Oscar winners, 3 future winners) and "Death on the Nile" (5 winners!) that turned out to be fairly successful. They were even enough of a genre that a parody movie was made, "Murder by Death" (with a respectable 3 Oscar winners of their own); which joins "Fatal Instinct" as one of the most esoteric and unnecessary genre spoofs in film history. Of course what all those Agatha Christie murder mysteries lack is the wealth of quality story material that can only come from the most detailed and richly written of Parker Brothers games (seriously does "Monopoly" even have a plot? How about that exercise in existential absurdity known as "Sorry!"?).

So as a Christmas favor to all the big Hollywood studios, here is my personal casting list of six former Oscar winners and their respective Clue characters. To note, I've tried to keep things economical by selecting past winners that haven't exactly been getting top billing as of late (it is a recession after all, we can't be filling all our films with Clooneys and Kidmans). Also, in terms of likenesses and artistic interpretations I've tried to keep it close to the characters from the 1992 version of the game I found in my basement. Finally, I must emphasize that this is strictly a theoretical thought exercise and that in reality I consider it a futile effort by any studio to improve upon the comedic masterpiece that was the original 1985 "Clue". Why it hasn't reached maximum Rocky Horror/Lebowski-esque cult status is truly the real mystery.

as played by:

F. Murray Abraham

The age and the hairline steam to be matching up quite nicely. Slap a pair of glasses on him, throw in a pipe and mustache, wrap him up in tweed and you've got yourself a quality Professor Plum. You know off the bat the audience is going to be suspecting something is up with the good professor when F. Murray strikes that trademark maliciously scheming Salieri smile. If he's willing to lend his Oscar shine to such works as "Muppets From Space" and "Th13een Ghosts" (yes that's actually the official spelling), you'd figure he'd get right on board.

as played by:

Geoffrey Rush

Sure he's definitely not hurting for work after serving a tour of duty in the Pirates series, one of the most lucrative trilogies in movie history. However after a nearly 5 year stretch of almost back to back blockbuster shooting, I'm sure he'd be more than eager to take a juicy little theatrical-like role playing opposite some of the most accomplished Hollywood thespians as opposed to a wooden Orlando Bloom and a monkey. I've always considered Mr. Green to be the most suspicious, evil looking character and we all know Rush can definitely do evil (Quills, Pirates, even Mystery Men).

as played by:

Robert Duvall

I originally considered Richard Dreyfuss for the role, but I figured him to be a bit too weak and whiny to play a tough military man. Duvall might be just slightly older than I'd like to be an ideal Mustard, but he makes up for those extra years with a forty plus year career of playing grizzled figures (they even had an SNL sketch about it). Basically if he can just do his asshole, military hero character from "The Great Santini", we'll be in business. As for his willingness to get on board, obviously a look at his filmography this decade ("The 6th Day", "Kicking & Screaming", "Gods and Generals", "Four Christmases") shows that he has long since given up on any discretion over film roles.

Now for the ladies...

as played by:

Brenda Fricker

This was hands down my most obvious selection. Maybe Kathy Bates had an outside shot at the part, but really no other past Oscar winner screams British (although she's Irish) maid than Ms. Fricker. She's got that motherly, yet slightly suspicious character to her that's absolutely perfect. Also, given her classic performance as the mom in "So I Married and Axe Murderer", you know she's game for lighthearted murder movies. On a totally random note, doesn't that picture of Mrs. White look sort of a like an old Britney Spears?

as played by:

Emma Thompson

Ideally, I think Helen Mirren would have been a better fit for the role, but she's only two years removed from an Oscar and five years from becoming a "dame", you know she'll demand the big bucks. I figure Emma Thompson to be a fairly affordable, under the radar Oscar winner (until recently I had forgotten that he had an acting Oscar. She even has an additional one for writing!). In contrast to Duvall's Mustard, Thompson's Peacock will be a little younger then usual, but it's a willing trade off for her talents. The woman has built her career on critically acclaimed ensemble, period piece roles: Howards End, The Remains of the Day, Sense and Sensibility, Love Actually (hey 2003 is a period).

as played by:

Rachel Weisz

As much as it pains me to publicly acknowledge that yes, Rachel Weisz, has indeed won an Oscar, I think she'd probably be the best fit to play the young femme fatale, Miss Scarlet. Ideally, considering the asian Scarlet is the only sliver of diversity in an otherwise completely whitewashed game, I would have liked to have cast an asian actress. Unfortunately, the only actress of East Asian descent to have won an Oscar, Miyoshi Umeki, was far too old and far too dead. I also considered Cathreine Zeta-Jones (she has one too, isn't that nuts?) but she seemed like a bit too big of a name to fit under budget. Rachel Weisz, on the other hand, seems well on her way to joining fellow forgotten best supporting actresses Mira Sorvino and Marica Gay Harden as Oscar trivia stumpers.

So there you have it, six roles, six stars, maybe throw in the Jonas Brothers as a bumbling trio of house servants, and you've got yourself the biggest film (for at least the first week or two of release) of the 2009 holiday season.

Four Christmases, Five Oscars

I was originally going to make this post around late November/Early December, in the weeks following the theatrical release of the above "Four Christmases", however I was distracted by this whole unpleasant law school finals business. I know it'll be difficult for all you readers out there to attempt to put yourselves back into the mindset of that long past age of innocence before crooked Illinois governors, $50 billion dollar ponzi schemes, and completely unnecessary remakes of classic science fiction movies; but we can all at least try to dream of simpler times.

If you haven't already heard, numerous reviews of "Four Christmases" made mention of the fact that no less than five acting Academy Award winners were cast in this film: Robert Duvall, Jon Voight, Sissy Spacek, Mary Steenburgen, and Reese Withersoon (sorry Dwight Yoakam, the Academy never truely appreciated your masterful supporting role in "Crank"). I found this casting factoid to be all the more fascinating given all the cramming of major entertainment award winners I did for the World Series of Pop Culture back in '06; and then I got to thinking: were there any other relatively recent films that contained at least five previous Oscar winners?

This was of course not counting Oscars won for being in that same movie or movies where the actors eventually won Oscars for future performances (like "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" which, to date, has three Best Actor Award Winners: Sean Penn, Forest Whitaker, and Nicholas Cage (still waiting for that fourth statute, Judge Reinhold)). Massive ensemble efforts like the "Ocean" movies, the Lord of The Rings Trilogy, "Saving Private Ryan", "The Thin Red Line", "Pearl Harbor", "Gosford Park","Rat Race", "Bobby", all surprisingly enough haven't had more than two winners at most in one film. Movies with three winners were more difficult to find but not exceedingly rare. Some of the more random recent movies off the top of my head that ended up having at least three winners were: "Deep Impact" (Robert Duvall, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximilian Schell); "The Royal Tenenbaums" (Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Gwyneth Paltrow)"; American Gangster" (Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Cuba Gooding Jr.); "Meet the Fockers" (Dustin Hoffman, Barbara Streisand, and Robert DeNiro); "Gone in 60 Seconds" (Robert Duvall, Nicholas Cage, Angelina Jolie); "Something's Gotta Give" (Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Frances McDormand). The last three seem to provide clear evidence that there is little correlation between having Oscar winning actors and movies being actually good.

The only movie within the last ten years or so that rivals "Four Christmases" was the 2006 Robert De Niro directed spy snoozer "The Good Shephard" which required an extended supporting cast and a 167 minute running time to fit in its five stars (Robert DeNiro, Angelina Jolie, Timothy Hutton, William Hurt, and Joe Pesci). In terms of cheap celebrity cameos, the film borders on "Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet" territory; whose gigantic cast of superfluous actors (which only manages to have an equal 5 winners as well) automatically disqualifies it in my book. The same goes to notable all star cavalcades like "Around the World in 80 Days"(5 winners, 4 future winners), "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (6 winners, 1 future winner), and "JFK" (4 winners, 1 future winner). Technically if brief cameos were allowed, I'm pretty sure the all time champ would be Robert Altman's "The Player" which has a grand total of 8 Oscar winners in addition to 4 future Oscar winners, most of whom are just playing themselves.

"Four Christmases" even stacks up well against the excesses of the genre that invented washed up Oscar winner packing, the 70's disaster movie. Despite its reputation, "The Towering Inferno" actually only had 2 Oscar winners at the time (William Holden and Jennifer Jones) along with 2 future winners (Paul Newman and Faye Dunaway). "Airport" had an impressive 4 winners (Burt Lancaster, George Kennedy, Helen Hayes, and Van Heflin) and by the second sequel, "Airport '77", had 5 (Jack Lemmon, Lee Grant, Olivia De Havilland, James Stewart, George Kennedy). The original "Posieden Adventure" had 5 winners as well (Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Shelley Winters, and Jack Albertson). It also somehow took 5 Oscar winners (Olivia De Havilland, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, Jose Ferrer, Patty Duke) and 2 future winners (Michael Caine and Henry Fonda) to make the killer bee disaster epic, "The Swarm".

Despite the lackluster reviews, the undeniable success of "Four Christmases" makes one wonder: is this the start of another disaster movie era of faded Oscar gold? However, in this case, instead of disaster movies it's fluffy, disposable comedies? Could "Meet the Fockers" and "Something's Gotta Give" be the "Earthquake" and "Hindenberg" to "Four Christmases"'s "Poseidon Adventure"? Should we expect a wave of aging Oscar winners playing the dysfunctional parents of today's "it" actors and actress? Should Louis Gossett Jr. and Mercedes Ruehl be polishing up their resumes?

Sax on the Beach

Although I'm not completely out of the woods yet (still one more final to fail on Wednesday), I figured I'd throw in a quickie to break up the silence.

Two weeks of nothing but constant cramming, interceded with stressful three hour exams that leave you feeling exhausted and usually disappointed is enough to give anyone a serious case of the blues. While crippling law school finals depression is not as relatable or has a catchy an acronym like S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder), it's still a pretty rough time for everyone involved. Unless you can find your own personally effective way to cope with the unrelenting anxiety and caffeine fueled negative vibes you'll end up like that one guy in the "Paper Chase" who towards the end of the movie went nuts and had to quit school.

Of course there's really one surefire, universal, instant remedy for feeling low: the Benny Hill Show end credits. Science has yet to explain its effectiveness, but that special combination of speed up footage, lecherousness, and "Yakety Sax" will never fail to elevate ones mood even just slightly. So imagine my delight when I came across "The Benny Hillifier", which harnesses the power of the internet to add a "Yakety Sax" soundtrack to any piece of video you choose. While there still no ability to comically speed up the clips, this is definitely still a bold step forward.

Some of my experiments include:

• Disturbing PSAs
• The Total Recall Trailer
• Wacky Animal Clips
• Joe Theismann Breaking His Leg
  
• That Compliation of Crazy Nick Cage Wicker Man Scenes
  
• The Pistons Pacers Brawl
• The Hindenburg Disaster
  
• The Ending to Dr. Strangelove
  
• Current Events
  

Finally a positive use for the internet

I'm Not Dead

The above title to Pink's fourth album (why would anyone name their album that) says it all. In case anyone's been questioning the extra long hiatus, it's law school finals time again! Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in a post in between all the cramming and crying, but until my final test on the 17th, don't hold out too much hope for an avalanche of entries. For anyone considering going to law school, my one piece of warning is: be prepared to have the joy completely sucked out of the period from Thanksgiving to Christmas for the next three years.

The only word to describe the time is: Ugly. People stop smiling, people stop going outside, and generally taking care of themselves. For most it's just locking yourself up in a two week nightmare of coffee, re-printed notes, practices tests, and study guides; all in a desperate effort to mercilessly force your brain into allowing in one more useless piece of legal doctrine. If I wasn't so lazy, I'd be in far worse shape.

If only the school library was more like the Tears For Fears video, full of wonder, romance, synthesizers, monkeys, and Roland Orzabal.