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Google makes another questionable announcement

As of this morning, Google Earth is free, lack of fancy graphics notwithstanding.

This isn't the most welcome news for those of us who spent $25-30 for a Keyhole annual subscription.. nor for those who spent far more in previous years for the previous incarnation called Earthviewer.

Google Earth is still in beta, which isn't announced very loudly on their site, and it sounds like the free version gives you most of what Keyhole previously provided for a fee. Possibly the ever-growing ad threat is a factor ("find nearby pizza joints" etc. is more in-your-face than before) and competition from other aerial/satellite photo viewing programs is increasing also. For $20 a year you can get Google Earth Plus which includes drawing tools, GPS and spreadsheet importing. The Pro version is still pricey at $400.. see a comparison chart - note it is misleading: the imagery data for all three versions is the same.

I'm all for free stuff on the web, and even Sun Microsystems announced yesterday that they are going to open source their Java system application server along with Solaris 10, but this Google news has me a little peeved.. possibly because I've been peeved at the way they've been rolling out beta testing for Google Earth the past month.

Today one of the user forum mods posted: "When Google Earth Plus was in closed beta, we restricted KMZ posting to this forum, but as of this morning (June 28th), Google Earth is now available to a (much) wider audience and is in open beta. Feel free to post kmz files in all forums." KMZ refers to the Google Earth file format which isn't readable by Keyhole. What irks me about this announcement is that they never had any posting restrictions in place - non-Keyhole-legible KML and KMZ files have been growing on the forum boards all month, several posted by the mods themselves! Few complained about it - it appears most regular users jumped on the beta download - but those who did were told, in essence, "you should download the beta program" or worse, "tough luck, maybe you'll get a beta invite sometime." Is it just me, or is this a crappy way to do business? Beta programs are by definition unfinished and potentially unstable - company reps telling paying customers they should dump the official product and switch to a beta version is just unfathomable to me, even if those reps are bulletin board denizens who may or may not be speaking officially for the company (they imply that they are.)

The irony is compounded with GE sales pitches like "View exotic locales like Maui and Paris" - Maui has very little detail to boast in GE or Keyhole. Unfortunately Hawaii lost most of the higher resolution it used to have on May 11.. Honolulu even lost terrain data, leaving Diamond Head looking like a squashed pancake.

All in all it's not a huge deal, but it is indicative of how things are done these days. I have to wonder if the Google Board and shareholders realize that the user forums for this product are essentially a select and closed club, a small circle of long-time posters who enjoy posting cryptic "I know something you don't know" flavored posts and are only welcoming to newcomers who suck up to their attitudes of being all-knowing and all-powerful.. or if the Board and shareholders would care unless the stock price were dropping. There are also a few very non-official people providing "official" answers on the forums.. some of which are clearly mistaken and carry some potential liability issues but eh, ask if I care.

I still enjoy Keyhole and use it a lot for research and for fun, but I've never been big on infiltrating old boys' clubs just because I could.. there are still some generous and thoughtful posters on the Keyhole forums (yes, the BBS is still called Keyhole) whom I'll continue to enjoy, but for the most part the magic I felt when discovering this incredible tool and its intelligent community of users sharing information has been tarnished a little bit more today.

It's just weird.. Google didn't even send out an email to registered users that anyone can get Google Earth now. Those who have been anxious to try it and didn't get a beta invite - and there are many - are still going to be wishing they were "special" enough if they don't happen to check in on the forums. And those that paid for something that's now free are just outta luck.. and $30.

The forums are incredibly slow today, as a note.. I guess they didn't factor in the additional bandwidth needed for the inevitable influx of new users either.

Update So at 5pm the email comes from Google with a download link, and the news that my current subscription has been applied to Google Earth Plus and extended for an extra year. That's a fair bone - I'm not particularly interested in the "extras" it's got over the free version, but I know that many are.

The forums have an additional bit from a mod that's worded a bit strangely, to say the least: "Yes, we plan to refund those few who are angry even in this situation, but more because it seems dangerous to have such volatile people angry than because there is any rational basis for a refund."

Call me loony, but I think giving something away that people have paid for can be considered a "rational basis" to refund.. but dangerous? Volatile? I'm not interested in GPS importing, but I'm not about to go blow up something because of it..

6.28.05 @ 3:36 PM pdt [add 2 cents]



Views: The Machinist

The Machinist 2004, dir. Brad Anderson

Trevor Reznik is not having a good week.

He's forgotten to pay his electric bill; there's a new guy at work with a mysterious and almost ominous, threatening vibe about him; and he's involved in a grisly industrial accident at his machine shop job.

And oh yea, he hasn't slept in a year.

It's very difficult to say too much about this movie without giving up any spoilers. So much of it is about the ride itself, watching Trevor's life and sanity unravel and wondering why, and then taking inventory of all the puzzle pieces and clues we've gathered with him once we reach the end. It's a very well crafted story and one that's filmed carefully with meticulous attention to detail, a very effective surreal tone, and an overall darkness that work well.

One of the things that makes The Machinist work so well is Christian Bale. He lost an astounding 63 pounds to play Trevor, who's described in the script as a "walking skeleton" - something that Bale achieved alarmingly well.. so well that he's gone right past emaciated and straight to bonebag. His appearance is freakish and highly disturbing. Not to mention his superb acting job.

The man is clearly deteriorating before our eyes, physically and mentally, and we tag along as he tries to figure out why, sometimes ahead of him and sometimes behind. Serious sleep dep will do a major number on your head - I know this from experience - and this movie illustrates the accompanying hallucinations and paranoia very well, including the way they layer themselves and integrate with "reality".

Director Brad Anderson and writer Scott Kosar pay homage to Hitchcock, Dostoevsky, Serling, Kafka, and the entire film noir genre in this one, and they create a psychological thriller with a slow and even pace that adds an eerieness not found in its quick-cut action peers. Jennifer Jason Leigh, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, and John Sharian each make strong contributions but it's Bale's brilliant performance that really makes this one work.

DVD extras include deleted scenes, an audio commentary track by Anderson (Bale is noticeably and sadly absent, I guess he was off being Batman), and a "Making Of" that points out some of the hurdles they faced shooting in Barcelona and trying to make it look like California. Personally I think many of the locations still have a European look and feel to them which adds a lot to the surrealness of the film, and fewer big name stars required by a relatively low budget is always a plus for telling a good story.

Try to see The Machinist without learning its story first - it will make watching it a lot more fun.

Christian Bale, John Sharian, and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón:


book & movie notes are accompanied by links to browse or buy from Amazon.com

6.28.05 @ 2:09 AM pdt [add 2 cents]



Keyword: "homemade"

"One of the country's richest men, John Walton, died Monday when his homemade aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from the Jackson Hole Airport in Wyoming just after noon.

Walton, 58, a son of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton and a member of the company's board, was piloting a lightweight, homemade aircraft. It crashed near the airport in Grand Teton National Park, the company said. He was pronounced dead at the scene." (AP)

There's a very good reason why most people don't fly in "homemade" airplanes..

John-Boy was worth about $18.2 billion, which put him at #11 on the world's richest people list. Hopefully his death will give us another round of vicious Walton family in-fighting over good ol' Sam's money. It's always fun for us little people to watch the super-rich quibble and self-destruct over billions.

BTW it may strike folks in the middle of the country as unbelievable, but there are lots of us on the edges who don't have a Wal-Mart anywhere near us.

6.28.05 @ 1:02 AM pdt [add 2 cents]



Views: Quick takes

Quickie reviews of other movies I've seen recently, less wordy than usual.

Adaptation
Meryl Streep and Nicolas Cage in a surprisingly well-done dual role make this one more than watchable. Add in an exotic orchid theme and a unique storyline that twists and turns when you least expect it and you've got a movie that loops and layers onto itself and keeps you intrigued. Chris Cooper's almost over-the-top part is a bonus.


American Splendor
Biopic of cartoonist Harvey Pekar that's both funny and sad, and somehow inspiring through, or maybe because of, the apparant mediocrity of Pekar's life. Multimedia and animation help make for a more interesting movie than most, and Paul Giamatti of Sideways does another outstanding job.


Coffee and Cigarettes
An odd movie that feels more like a film school exercise, this one is a series of conversations in black & white between unlikely people held over, oddly enough, coffee & cigarettes. Steven Wright and Roberto Benigni discuss a dentist appointment; Steve Buscemi shares his Elvis theory with twins Cinqué and Joie Lee; White Stripes Jack & Meg White muse over Nikola Tesla; Alfred Molina & Steve Coogan clash over genealogy and the stereotype phony Hollywood personality, respectively; and Bill Murray shows up to wait on Wu Tang's RZA and GZA (and it works). One of the odder pairings is Iggy Pop & Tom Waits, who are brilliantly uncomfortable with each other. Cate Blanchett gives the best performance here, playing both herself and her cousin who's jealous of Cate's success. The end piece with Bill Rice and Taylor Mead is superb.

ExistenZ
Jennifer Jason Leigh plays a superstar virtual reality game designer who goes inside her newest game with Jude Law in this one that bends reality like nobody has since Philip K. Dick. Another David Cronenberg movie that will keep you guessing until you give up and just go along for the mind-warp ride. This one has some unique effects and ideas, and maybe the idea of video games as the most successful and elite entertainment form isn't as futuristic as it seems.


Gummo
The single most messed up movie I've ever seen. It randomly highlights various adolescents in Xenia, Ohio, a small town devasted by a tornado 20 years earlier. Their activities range from cat-killing for profit to pimping out a retarded sister to worse. What we end up with is a combination of art-school damage and a punk rock kind of mentality that's out to shock, and it does. This movie will replace at least eight of your top ten most disturbing film moments. If you have a sick itch this one will scratch it good, and it will stay with you. Chloe Sevigny is the only "name" in this, and she doubles as costumer.


Harold and Kumar go to White Castle
This one's almost like watching Beavis & Butthead, in a good way. It's just silly enough to keep you watching even as it gets goonier & stupider. It's a refreshing break from the usual Hollywood "youth" comedy in that the title characters are Asian and Indian but they're as all-American as their typical WASP contemporaries, if not more so, which means they have to put up with getting hassled for being ethnic as well as nerdy while on their all-night quest for miniature burgers. Neil Patrick Howser ("Doogie Howser") appears as himself, apparently trying to lose his reputation as the squeaky clean teen brainiac.


Lost in Translation
Sofia Coppola wrote this with Bill Murray in mind and we're lucky he agreed to do it. Murray is an acting has-been who's still big enough in Japan to do a booze ad, and he captures the isolation and alienation of being alone in Tokyo perfectly. His typical low-key humor is subtler than usual, and often funnier, and perfectly balanced against the movie's melancholy undertone. Scarlett Johansson is also good here as a kindred soul to Murray - at least for a few days.


Punch-Drunk Love
Adam Sandler steps far away from his usual goony roles in a brilliant story of a loser "with issues" but who is mostly hanging in there for appearances. Bullied by his sisters and taken in by phone sex scammers, he falls for Emily Watson and is stunned that she feels the same. The kind of movie that you'll love if you are sick of predictable, formula films.


Session 9
Not a great movie about a team of asbestos removers working to renovate a former insane asylum who get caught up in the myth and spirit of the place. What makes this one worthwhile is the building itself: it's filmed on location inside Danvers State Mental Hospital in Massachusetts, and the eerieness of the huge abandoned facility makes it as mysterious and intriguing a character as any of the players. Also interesting is the fact that it's an all-male cast. A second tier storyline was removed (wisely) but it left some gaps in the big picture, as if they just cut scenes without bothering to do any rewrites to make up for it. They also cut one of the best shots from the movie as a result, but left it in the trailer.


Sideways
Everything you've heard is true: this one's terrific and it proves casting doesn't have to be formula to work. Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church are so good, and so opposite, and together illustrate the silent desperation of midlife crisis for those not on the Most Successful lists with empathy and spot-on humor. Sideways is also refreshingly non-PC - not only do they drink & drive here and there, but for these guys, the cardinal sin is to drink & dial.


Spider
Ralph Fiennes gives a spectacular and very unglamorous performance as a middle aged schizophrenic going into a new halfway house. His reality is shown to us as he lives it: jumbles of present and past, reality and memory, all skewed by his (and our) attempts to reconcile and understand his past. Miranda Richardson does equally well in each of the three roles she plays - she does them so well it isn't even apparent they are all her until the credits roll. Spider gives us the most startlingly accurate depiction of living inside schizophrenia possible short of a personal visit there, and offers a compelling story and mystery to boot. Once again David Cronenberg proves he is the master of the head-game genre.


The Station Agent
An antisocial dwarf played by Peter Dinklage inherits an abandoned train station and moves in, hoping for a quiet, uncomplicated life but is harassed by eccentric but mostly well-meaning neighbors. He slowly forms an uneasy friendship with two of them, but as things get more comfortable for these emotional cripples, they carry more potential for emotional danger. The movie has slow, easy pace that complements its characters and their stories.

book & movie notes are accompanied by links to browse or buy from Amazon.com

6.27.05 @ 12:38 AM pdt [add 2 cents]



Reads: Choke

Choke by Chuck Palahniuk

"If you're going to read this, don't bother. After a couple pages, you won't want to be here. So forget it. Go away. Get out while you're still in one piece. Save yourself."

Thus begins Choke, an outstanding book that's unlike any other I've read in a very long time. With a start like that you know you have to read on and find out what the deal is. Chuck Palahniuk has created some highly unique and memorable characters here, and they'll get you thinking about some of life's Big Issues at the same time as they make you smile or feel repulsed. Often simultaneously.

Med school dropout Victor Mancini tells his story in first-person, present-tense (not an easy feat in itself) while he's at a turning point in his life. His mother is on the verge of dying in a high cost convalescent home, and Victor works in 17th century costume at a historical re-enactment theme park for minimum wage. In order to supplement his income and pay for his mom's upkeep he goes out to high class restaurants nightly and proceeds to choke on his food halfway through dinner. Invariably one of his fellow diners rushes to his aid, gives him a Heimlich, and then keeps in touch later, sending cards and checks to Victor.

Victor's mother was something of a social revolutionary and whacko, and while Victor largely resents his upbringing with her (between various stints in foster homes), he has also retained much of what she taught him. He sees the lifesaving heroics of his dinner saviours as being helpful to them by giving them something to feel proud about, something to make their own lives seem worthy. His mom would do things like switching around the color-carrying bottles between hair color boxes on store shelves, to "mess with people's little identity paradigms.. Beauty Industry Terrorism." Like mother, like son.

Although it's one of my favorites movies, I haven't read Fight Club which Palahniuk also wrote, but I now plan to. His tone and phrasing is amazing, jumping from gritty street talk to profoundly beautiful prose to highly-charged sexual raunch without skipping a beat, and back again. As Victor's situation escalates and his self-examination intensifies, he decides to give up trying and just be the most despicable person he can be. He repeats to himself "What would Jesus not do?" and proceeds to do that.

Choke shares a few themes with Fight Club, including another satirical look at 12-step recovery programs (this time it's sex addicts), and there's also a noteworthy sidekick in this one in the character of Denny, Victor's co-worker at the living history park and a fellow sex addict. Denny is a purely existential kind of guy who truly doesn't give a damn what anyone thinks of him; an unsavory yet likeable guy who's also a kind of idiot savant of philosophy. Choke also has an outstanding ending that will have you re-reading the beginning of the book to figure out just how we got there and why.

Choke is gritty, dirty, raunchy, and horrific at times, so be warned.. but it's also one of the most intriguing and thought-provoking books I've come across in ages. It challenges the status quo of reality and memory, and our perceptions of both, and that's always a good thing.

book & movie notes are accompanied by links to browse or buy from Amazon.com

6.24.05 @ 12:42 AM pdt [add 2 cents]



Reads: Quentins

Quentins by Maeve Binchy

I love Maeve Binchy. Her books are light, compelling reading but far from being fluff, they deal with those everyday realities of life that may not seem important at the time but in fact turn out to shape the people they happen to.

Binchy's books usually revolve around ordinary people in Dublin, Ireland and Quentins is no different. If you've read any of her recent books, you're familiar with the upscale restaurant and may think this is a rehash of those other books. But it isn't - this time Quentins is to be the focus of a locally-made documentary that will show Dublin's evolution from small town mentality to sophisticated world city by mirroring the same in the restaurant, its staff, and its customers. In doing so, and unfolding her characters' stories, Binchy shows some of the casualties of that sophistication - a young woman in love with a married man, the devastating effects on ordinary people who are victims of financial fraud, and a successful expatriate's coming to terms with his hatred and resentment of his father - the kinds of things that wouldn't have been as likely to happen in the stricter parochial Dublin of the past.

We meet again a few characters from Binchy's other books including Tom and Cathy of Scarlet Feather, the precocious twins Maud and Simon, Nora O'Donoghue (who followed her true love to Italy, watching him raise his family from afar), and of course Brenda & Patrick Brennan of Quentins. We also experience a few births, deaths, and weddings - those major milestones that mark the passage of time for fictional people just as they do in our own lives.

Maeve Binchy's great talent is in writing about ordinary people who, through easy but meticulous character development, become extraordinary people as we come to know them better. She rounds out every one of her characters with good and bad traits, like real people have, and she always injects just the right amount of humor and sadness at just the right time. She's been successful writing short stories and full length novels, and in Quentins we get a bit of both: within the context of researching the documentary, we're treated to short narratives about a certain lunch or dinner at the restaurant that was the setting for life-changing events for the people involved.

Quentins is like every Binchy book in that it's just delightful in every way. It's a perfect "escape" novel that will introduce you to characters you'll remember long after reading about them, and it also reminds us that no matter how great or horrible some event may be, in time it will become just another memory of the past. Her greatest gift may be in the ways she shows us how different people react to bad things that happen in life, and how some of those reactions help to heal and move on, while others lead to bitterness or guilt, or worse.

book & movie notes are accompanied by links to browse or buy from Amazon.com

6.24.05 @ 12:42 AM pdt [add 2 cents]



Views: The Motorcycle Diaries

The Motorcycle Diaries 2004, dir. Walter Salles

Download my Google Earth tour to follow along with the stops in this film.

This is simply an outstanding film. It follows Ernesto (Che) Guevara and Alberto Granada on their 1952 motorcycle trip through South America to explore and discover their own continent, and was based on books by each of them about the trip.

Politics take a back seat to incredible scenery in this movie. Ernesto is a young, idealistic medical student - his future as a revolutionary/household name/t-shirt icon is years away, although his awakening to that future was born on this trip. At heart this is really a stunning travelogue and a roadtrip/buddy movie.

I've made a Keyhole tour of their stops in the film that also has mini-recaps of what happens where. It contains some spoilers, but the movie's more about the unfolding of the journey and the effects it has on the two young men than the usual plot-driven "what happens next" scenario.

Gael García Bernal and Rodrigo De la Serna play Guevara and Granada respectively, and both are outstanding. As actors, they are perfect complements to each other, as are their characters. The entire supporting cast is excellent as well, and includes a lot of local and indigenous people in the various places they go. The movie is in Spanish with subtitles and there's so much to look at all the time that it's easy to miss some dialogue, so this one is probably better on home video with rewind than in a theater.


Walter Salles, Alberto Granado, Gael García Bernal
DVD extras include some deleted & extended scenes, short interviews with Bernal (whose parents are both actors) and director Walter Salles, as well as a wonderful gem with the real Alberto Granado who is now 83 and was involved in filming. There's also a "Making Of" that's not much more than an extended trailer with some light background. It does include a fun piece about the two actors learning to ride "The Mighty One" - the crusty 1939 Norton bike that died along the way (and none too soon) - and also some interview clips with Che's daughter that are interesting and thought-provoking. But sadly there's not much about the various location shoots along the 7,000+ miles of the journey. The scenery is simply stunning throughout and I'm sure there were some serious logistics involved in filming it, not to mention the interaction of cast and crew with the locals (especially those who appeared in the film).. those are the kinds of things that can make a "Making Of" special for a movie like this.

Setting out for a grand adventure on "The Mighty One"


Crossing Lago Frias from Argentina into Chile


Crossing Chile's Atacama Desert (the world's most barren)


They are overwhelmed by Machu Picchu (which alone makes this movie worth seeing - it's spectacular)


Leaving the San Pablo leper colony in Peru, and Guevara symbolically leaving medicine (a few patients from the original colony they visited appear in the film)


book & movie notes are accompanied by links to browse or buy from Amazon.com

6.21.05 @ 3:53 PM pdt [add 2 cents]



Tube: 30 Days

(now available on DVD)

That Super Size Me guy Morgan Spurlock is back with a new show on FX that is definitely in the must-see-tv category.

This time he's taking the "for a month" concept of Super Size Me and applying it to other situations in 21st century reality. In the opener, he and girlfriend Alex Jamieson (the vegan chef in the movie) left their cars, cash, credit cards, and health insurance cards at home and went to Columbus, Ohio to live on minimum wage for a month. It was an eye-opener for them, and likely for many viewers, to find out just how far their construction and food service paychecks stretched (not very), especially when each of them had a medical emergency.

Spurlock isn't so much of a masochist that he's willing to put himself into bad situations month after month: he's brought in additional people for upcoming episodes of "30 Days". They include a college girl's mom who sets out to emulate her daughter's binge drinking at school; a devout Christian who agrees to live as a Muslim in Michigan; a 24-year-old homophobe who moves to San Francisco to live within its gay culture; a 30-something former athlete who goes on anti-aging drugs and makes some lifestyle changes; and two friends who go to live in an "eco village" in Missouri for a month without oil, gas, electricity, or other fossil fuel-driven modern conveniences.

As in Super Size Me, Spurlock is more entertaining than preachy, but we'd all do well to listen to the lessons he's providing. If nothing else, the series will serve to help us all appreciate what we do have - however much or little that is.

This should have been included in my Summer reality roundup but it really deserves its own page - it's that good.

browse or buy tv shows on DVD at Amazon.com

6.21.05 @ 2:42 PM pdt [add 2 cents]



Reality roundup

It's high season for reality tv.. let's see what's going on. VH1 is way ahead as far as the networks - they came in late to the reality game and are quietly winning the race for the most watchable shows.

Currently running:

30 Days (FX)
This one has been given its own page.

Dancing with the Stars (ABC)
Take champion ballroom dancers, pair them up with reality show caliber celebs, and teach them to dance. Eliminations come from a panel of experts tempered by public vote - since neither the experts nor the public understands all the criteria. "Bachelorette" Trista of tv wedding fame was first out because she didn't dance sexy enough. Evander Holyfield went next which was a shame, he was one of the most fun to watch. Still on the dance floor are Rod Stewart's ex Rachel Hunter, soap star Kelly Monaco, New Kid Joey McIntyre, and John O'Hurley, Mr. Peterson on "Seinfeld" and former host of "To Tell the Truth", who is far and away the best of the bunch. Kudos to their professional dance partners who each deserve mountains of credit for making these folks look so good - they aren't just two-stepping out there. This one's more fun than it should be.

Stripsearch (VH1)
Supposedly a nationwide search turned up these fifteen guys who are trying to avoid elimination so they can end up in the final seven, who will be a team of Vegas showboys. Just one problem: most of them can't dance. It's pretty funny watching them try though. It's fun watching them fight and gossip and vie for attention too. I don't think any of them own a shirt. The testosterone level of this jock/frat show is off the charts and the buff boys' cumulative IQ is about 45, but both are easily balanced by host Rachel Perry, the voice of all those VH1 countdown shows.

Britney and Kevin Chaotic (UPN/MTV)
This one may be over, but it's such a train wreck it's hard to tell. These two are the poster kids for horny white trash and they'll make you scream at the injustice of excessive wealth distribution.

Kept (VH1)
Mick Jagger's former Jerry Hall is looking for a new pet, and she's flown 12 American guys to London to compete for the place at her feet. The contests are a bit different in this one: they have to learn to dress, eat, dance, and talk properly, as Jerry runs in some fast & fancy circles. A lot of her celeb friends are along for the ride, including designers, artists, rockstar wives and titled nobility. Unfortunately she's already eliminated the only guy who understood the concept and had the submissive-male mentality combined with self assurance (a rare combo) that she's looking for.

True Life / Made (MTV)
Both of these shows are better than they should be and ring truer than most. They've either started up new seasons or will soon. Each highlights teens and 20s who are a whole lot more real than the usual "Real World"/"Road Rules" kids, and they're dealing with real situations.

Fire Me Please (CBS), Hell's Kitchen (Fox), The Cut (CBS)
These are all overscripted, overedited, predictable, and dull. Tommy Hilfiger of "The Cut" should know better.. but since he doesn't seem to, he should bring in daughter Ally who had a pretty good run as one of MTV's "Rich Girls".

Coming up:

Surreal Life (VH1)
This has been one of the better shows for its past few rounds as it's got a casting team who knows how to mix it up right. They stick six semi- and quasi- and former celebs in a Hollywood mansion and roll cameras. Not voting anyone off the island doesn't necessarily keep things friendly: when bad things happen, they are refreshingly personal. Starting soon we'll have Jose Canseco (didn't sell enough books, I guess), Janice Dickinson (fired by Tyra Banks), "Apprentice" loser Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, Bronson "Balki" Pinchot, Sandi "Pepa" Denton, X-games/motocross racer Carey Hart, and UK model Caprice. Andy Dick will escort them into the house and Sally Jessy Raphael will escort them out, as usual. This one will be better than it sounds - it always is. I don't think the producers are pulling for Canseco: their publicity pics show him striking out, getting tagged out, missing a fly ball, and.. pitching?

Celebrity Fit Club (VH1)
This one's coming back and a good thing too. The last round had the best of everything: Wendy "Snapple Lady" Kaufman made you want to be her best friend, and Daniel Baldwin got so strung out on drugs he didn't even show up for the finale. Wendy's coming back for round two (yay), along with new chubbies Gary Busey, Jackee Harry, Willie Aames ("Eight is Enough"), Tocarra Jones (not "American's Next Top Model"), Phil Margera (Bam's dad), Jani Lane (Warrant), and Victoria Jackson (SNL). Harvey the Marine is coming back too, but we're getting new medico "experts". I think it's a no-brainer that Busey will take Baldwin's role.. but Phil Margera will make the show.

I Want to be a Hilton (NBC)
Paris & Nicky's mom Kathy sets out to adopt a new kid.

Hogan Knows Best (VH1)
Hulk Hogan at home, highly overprotective of his daughter Brooke.

Brat Camp (ABC)
This one looks like it's about sending obnoxious rich teens to boot camp, much like daytime shows have been doing for years. <yawn>

Real World (MTV)
This is really the one that started it all, until "Survivor" added a jungle ambience and ran with it. RW is back for a 16th season with a new crop of hormonally challenged hot stuffs. This time the angry and angsty 20-somethings are in Austin so expect a lot of bar bands with the booze.

Tommy Lee Goes to College (NBC)
Pamela's ex enrolls at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln and joins the marching band. What makes this one interesting is that Tommy Lee blamed Mötley Crüe bandmate Vince Neil for "dragging what's left of a once-great band" when Neil went on "Surreal Life", and that he'd sunk to "an all-time low" by doing so. Neil later had a "Swan" type makeover on VH1, complete with facelift and liposuction.

Big Brother 6 (CBS)
This is the mac daddy of reality shows, because it's the only one that lets us watch everything as it happens, before the editors get hold of it. The broadcast shows begin July 7 and will be on most Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays through September. But the broadcast shows aren't the meat of this one - the 24/7 webcast feeds from inside the house are where the big fun comes from, most of which doesn't ever show up on CBS. I'll be monitoring the feeds again this year and reporting on them daily with a bad attitude at HamsterWatch.com.

6.18.05 @ 4:33 AM pdt [add 2 cents]



Mitch Hedberg

I loved this guy. I was shocked to discover he died March 30 of this year at the age of 37.. I don't know how I missed that at the time but I did. Here's some of his stuff.. he'll be missed.

(strong language)
(like joke emails, too much of a good thing can ruin it.. bookmark and return)

I wanna hang a map of the world in my house. Then I'm gonna put pins into all the locations that I've travelled to. But first, I'm gonna have to travel to the top two corners of the map so that it will not fall off the wall.

I once saw a forklift lift a crate of forks. It was so damn literal.

I wish I were a locksmith. I'd be pimping that shit out. I'd be all like, "Hey, I'll trade you a free key duplication for.. [laughs] .. That joke made me laugh before I could finish it. Which is good, cause it doesn't have an ending.

I was at a club and they had blacklights everywhere. A blacklight is a light that makes everyone look cool.. except me, 'cause I was under the impression that the mustard stain came out.

I tried to throw away a yo-yo. It was fucking impossible.

I tried to walk into Target, but I missed. Damn.

Whenever I walk, people try to hand me out flyers. And when someone tries to hand me out a flyer, it's kinda like they're saying, "Here - you throw this away."

I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin' and hook up with them later.

I got my hair highlighted because I felt some strands were more important than others.

When I was a kid, I used to lie awake in my twin bed wonderin' where my brother was.

I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.

I type at one hundred and one words a minute. But it's in my own language.

I use the word totally too much. I need to change it up and use a word that is different but has the same meaning. "Mitch, do you like submarine sandwiches?" "All-encompassingly!"

I bought a seven-dollar pen because I always lose pens and I got sick of not caring.

I don't own a cell phone or a pager. I just hang around everyone I know, all the time. If someone needs to get a hold of me they just say "Mitch," and I say "What?" and turn my head slightly..

I wrote a script for a guy, and he said he liked it but he thought that I needed to rewrite it. I said, "Fuck that, I'll just make a copy."

Kinko's is my favourite copy place cause it's open 24 hours, like if it's three in the morning, and I suddenly decide I need two of something, I'm covered. Sometimes I will wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, "shit.. oh yea, Kinko's.. all right, that will not remain singular"

I've had the AIDS test four times. And that shit is scary, doesn't matter what you've been doing. So I don't get the regular AIDS test anymore, I get the roundabout AIDS test. I call up my friend Brian and say "Brian, do you know anyone that has AIDS?" "No." "Cool, cause you know me."

My belt holds my pants up, but the belt loops hold my belt up. So which one's the real hero?

Has anyone seen me on Letterman? Two million people watch that show and I don't know where they are. "You might have seen this next comedian on the Late Show", but I think more people have seen me at the store. That should be my introduction. "You might have seen this next comedian at the store" and people would say "Hell yes I have!"

I got into comedy to do comedy which is weird, I know. But when you're in Hollywood and you're a comedian everybody wants you to do other things besides comedy. They say "All right you're a standup comedian, can you act? Can you write? Write us a script." They want me to do things that's related to comedy but not comedy. That's not fair. It's as though I was a cook, and I worked my ass off to become a really good cook, and they said "All right you're a cook, can you farm?"

I live in New York, and I got a roommate to save money, but see, I fucked up, cause I'm 31 and I'm too old for a roommate. I signed a year lease too, I fucked up severely, it's as though I wrote a bad joke and now I gotta tell it for a year.

(to Howard Stern) There's a reason you can say anything you want on satellite radio, because nobody's listening!

I like to hold the microphone cord like this, I pinch it together, then I let it go, and you hear a whole bunch of jokes at once.

I think Pringles' initial intention was to make tennis balls. But on the day that the rubber was supposed to show up, a big truckload of potatoes arrived. But Pringles was a laid-back company. They said "Fuck it. Cut 'em up."

I think Pizza Hut is the cockiest pizza chain on the planet, because Pizza Hut will accept all competitors' coupons. That makes me wish I had my own pizza place. "Mitch's Pizzeria.. This week's coupon: unlimited free pizza. Free pizza oven with purchase of a small Coke. Two-for Tuesday: buy one pizza, get one franchise free."

You know when they have a fishing show on TV? They catch the fish and then let it go. They don't want to eat the fish; they just want to make it late for something. "Why were you late?" "I got caught!" "Show me the inside of your lip!"

I got an ant farm. Them fellas don't grow shit.

I wanted to buy a candle holder, but the store didn't have one. So I got a cake.

I find that ducks' opinions of me are very much influenced over whether or not I have bread. A duck loves bread, but he does not have the capability to buy a loaf. That's the biggest joke on a duck ever. Like, if I worked in a convenience store, and a duck walked in and took a loaf of bread in its beak, I would let it. I would say, "Come back tomorrow, bring your friends." When I think of a duck's friends, I think of more ducks. But, they could have like, a beaver in tow. Cause if you're an animal, you want to have a beaver as a friend, cause they have some kickass houses. That shit is on the lake. Lakeside my ass, lake on!

I like the FedEx guy, 'cause he is a drug dealer and he don't even know it. And he is always on time.

This product that was on TV was available for four easy payments of $19.95. I would like a product that was available for three easy payments and one fucking complicated payment. We can't tell you which payment it is, but one of these payments is going to be a bitch. The mailman will get shot to death, the envelope will not seal, and the stamp will be in the wrong denomination. Good luck fucker. The last payment must be made in wampum.

Last time I called Shotgun we had rented a limo.. I fucked up.

There's a commercial on late-night TV for this thing you attach to a garden hose, it says "You can water your hard-to-reach plants with this product." Who the fuck would make their plants hard to reach!? That seems so very mean. "I know you need water, but I'm gonna make you hard to reach. I will throw water at you. Hopefully, they will invent a product before you shrivel and die. Think like a cactus!"

My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them.

One time a guy handed me a picture of himself, and he said, "Here's a picture of me when I was younger." Every picture of you is of when you were younger. Here's a picture of me when I am older. "You son of a bitch, how'd you pull that off? Let me see that camera."

An escalator can never break. It can only become stairs. You would never see an escalator "Temporarily Out of Order" sign, just "Escalator Temporarily Stairs - Sorry for the Convenience. We apologize for the fact that you can still get up there."

I wrote my friend a letter using a highlighting pen but he could not read it, he thought I was just trying to show him certain parts of a piece of paper.

I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.

I wanted to get my teeth whitened, but I said fuck it, I'll just get a tan instead.

I'm gonna fix that joke.. I'm gonna take all the words out and put new ones in it. That joke will be fixed.

All McDonalds commercials end the same way: "prices and participation may vary." I want to open my own McDonalds and not participate in shit. I want to be a stubborn McDonalds owner. "You got cheeseburgers?" "Nope, we got spaghetti! ..and blankets."

I have a cheese-shredder at home, which is its positive name. They don't call it by its negative name, which is sponge-ruiner. Because I wanted to clean it, and now I have little bits of sponge that would melt easily over tortilla chips.

Burritos are sleeping bags for ground beef.

I like cinnamon rolls. That's why I wish they made, like, a cinnamon roll incense. 'Cause I don't always have time to make a pan. Perhaps I'd rather light a stick, and have my roommates wake up with false hopes.

I like vending machines, because snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at the store oftentimes I will drop it, so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential.

I opened up a container of yogurt, and under the lid it said "Please Try Again." Apparently I was in a contest I was unaware of. But I thought I might have opened the yogurt wrong, or maybe Yoplait was trying to inspire me. "C'mon, Mitchell, don't give up. Please try again. A message of inspiration from your friends at Yoplait. Fruit on the bottom, hope on top."

That would be cool if you could eat a good food with a bad food and the good food would cover for the bad food when it got to your stomach. Like, you could eat a carrot with an onion ring and they would travel down to your stomach, then they would get there, and the carrot would say, "It's cool, he's with me."

I think foosball is a combination of soccer and shish kabobs.

Foosball fucked up my perception of soccer. I thought you had to kick the ball and then spin 'round and round. I can't do a back flip, much less several.. simultaneously with two other guys.. that look exactly like me.

The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how much you play, You'll never be as good as a wall. I played a wall once. They're fucking relentless.

They say that the recipe for Sprite is lemon and lime. But I tried to make it at home. There's more to it than that. "Hey, you want some more homemade Sprite, man?" "Not until you figure out what the fuck else is in it!"

I had a box of Ritz crackers and on the back of the box of Ritz crackers it had all these suggestions as to what to put on top of the Ritz. It said "Try it with turkey and cheese." "Try it with peanut butter." Oh, c'mon man, they're crackers. That's why I got 'em — I like crackers. There ain't no suggestion: "Put a Ritz on top of a Ritz." I didn't buy 'em 'cuz they're little edible plates.

Once I saw this wino who was eating grapes, and I said, "Dude, you have to wait."

A waffle is like a pancake with syrup traps.

I hate turkeys. If you stand in the meat section at the grocery store long enough, you start to get mad at turkeys. There's turkey ham, turkey bologna, turkey pastrami. Some one needs to tell the turkey: man, just be yourself. I already like you, little brother. You do not need to emulate the other animals. I used to draw you. (Stares at hand.) Man, if you were missing a couple of fingers, you drew one fucked-up turkey. You'd be like, "That turkey's been in an accident."

I like refried beans. That's why I wanna try fried beans, because maybe they're just as good and we're just wasting time. You don't have to fry them again after all.

You know that Pepperidge Farm bread, that stuff is fancy. That stuff is wrapped twice. You open it, and it still ain't open. That's why I don't buy it, I don't need another step between me and toast.

What's a sesame seed grow into? I don't know. We never give them a chance, what the fuck is a sesame?! It's a street.. it's a way to open shit..

My friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana, and I said, "No, but I want a regular banana later, so yeah."

Rice is great if you're really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something.

I make instant oatmeal in the morning then I don't do shit for an hour. Makes me wonder why I need the instant oatmeal, I could make the regular oatmeal and feel productive.

Fettucini alfredo is macaroni and cheese for adults.


Mitch's site

6.17.05 @ 2:00 AM pdt [add 2 cents]



Head for safe ground, but wait for a commercial

So I'm sitting here at my computer, attempting to move on from a really crappy day.. the tv is on over there, reunited 80s bands are competing for (something?) and rehashing their old hits. Or hit, in the case of the Knack, who was on screen when I happened to look up. I noticed a newscrawl just ending.. hmm what's this? I waited through a few more m-m-m-m-m-m-m-my sharona's and it comes again: A TSUNAMI WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR THE ENTIRE COAST OF CALIFORNIA.. wha???

Does NBC break in to their riveting programming to announce this for folks who may not be staring at the skinny tie guys? Nope.

So I'm off to Google News where I find a couple dozen 8-minute-old links from China, Winnipeg, Brisbane, Myrtle Beach, Oklahoma, Maine, Columbus, etc. - nothing from west coast news sources - about a 7.0 quake off the coast of Crescent City. The tsunami warning is for Mexico to Vancouver Island - whoa. "A tsunami has not been confirmed, but it could happen." Well, tsunami is a news buzzword now.

Meanwhile the Motels warble about the lonely, on to commercials, and a news teaser comes on to stay tuned for the 11pm news later. They mention a new budget for San Jose and "a Hollywood superstar's big plans for Oakland." More commercials, and apparently somebody woke up at the station: news chick comes on with "our big story of the night," adding that the tsunami warning has been cancelled. Which means the lead story on the 11pm news will be "Could a tsunami happen here?" with lots of colorful diagrams.

And we go back to Vanilla Ice rehashing "Ice Ice Baby".. remember when he busted up the "Surreal World" house over that? Said he'd never ever do that song again and didn't even want to hear the title or be affiliated with the song. (Who did "Money Changes Everything"? Maybe they should make an appearance on this show.)

Scientists disagree, but I've always believed in the earthquake ping-pong theory. There was a 7.9 yesterday in Chile which has killed eleven.

6.14.05 @ 9:42 PM pdt [add 2 cents]



Not guilty, at least in court

Ten charges, ten not guilty's. The weirdo gets to go home.

I never thought he did the stuff that he was charged with. You only had to watch the tv show about him that put all this in motion, and consider the timing of the show and the charges to know that. Michael Jackson is asexual - he's no more interested in screwing little boys than he is in screwing women or anyone else. If he was guilty, would he have announced happily to those tv cameras in his face that he enjoyed having sleepovers with the kids at Neverland? Not that that's ok, or normal, but it is as innocent as he believes it to be.. almost, anyway.

So he's got some porn in his house.. lots of people do. If that's a crime and enough to send someone to prison, lots & lots of people are in trouble. If he had kiddie porn in there, he would have been charged for that - and convicted - and rightfully so. Didn't happen.

So now he gets to go home.. but unfortunately the reading of those ten not guilty's only counts in the eyes of the law. Wacko Jacko is still considered guilty by millions, and always will be, and that's a shame. An accusation of child molesting is the kind of thing that never ever goes away. Maybe it says more about those who want to believe in his guilt than it does about Jackson. If he was doing stuff to those kids, where are the others? He's hosted thousands of kids at the playground he built for them, and had "special" relationships with dozens of them. Why aren't they coming forward if he was diddling them? Why have there been only two parents out of so many who have made complaints? Because it was as innocent as Jackson has always claimed, that's why. Bizarre and inappropriate, obviously.. but innocent.

The guy has provided us more celebrity weirdness than his quota, and that's been great. If he's smart, he'll just fade away now and lay low. Last time he was accused of this kind of thing and made some kid and his greedy parents millionaires, he did the opposite: he went on tv and told us all about having his penis photographed.. that didn't help him, and it added a whole new level to his bizarre reputation. It'll be interesting to see what he does now.

Meanwhile the current kid's wacky mom is probably regretting having listened to whoever told her to go ahead with prosecuting Jackson. She could have been a millionaire right now and gone on to extort money from the next half dozen celebrities on her hit list. Everything at Neverland was fine with her until the tv show aired, then somebody got hold of her and suggested she turn the tables of what had been said. Talk about child abuse - having let her kid hang out at Neverland for so long, knowing everything that was going on, and then dragging it all into court in her son's name.. she's the guilty party in this particular case if you ask me.

6.13.05 @ 2:34 PM pdt [add 2 cents]



Taking care of your Sims, once and for all

(contains strong language)

They're needy and demanding, and they're always whining for something - more money, better friends, a better tv channel, a new carpet.. when you get to the point that trying to keep your Sims happy and promotable at work is too much like keeping up with your own life, there are ways to deal with them.

If you just leave them on their own they usually oversleep, miss the carpool, lose their jobs, and let the housework go.. then you can ignore their pleas and let them be miserable. If you want a more permanent solution, you can let them starve to death.. or build them a swimming pool then take away the ladder once they go in for a dip. Or you can get creative, like this person did.

This is a repost/mirror of a Sims experience created by Evergrey. Including the clown painting in this scenario is genius. Enjoy.

I guess people actually play this game to make their little sims happy. I'll admit that i did that for awhile, but to be honest, it just got boring. So of course I reverted to my typical gaming pattern of torturing innocents to death.

I start out by creating a random couple. I build them a little room, seen below, with a door. One they've both walked in to check their "home" out, I get rid of the door. As you can see, the room contains the following:

A ghetto chair
A fireplace
A clown painting

Because there's only one chair, directly opposite the clown painting, which Mr. Victim immediately takes, Mrs. Victim quickly becomes annoyed. They have no light, no bathroom, and no food source.



After awhile, a fucking clown appears. I don't know either. Said clown is insanely annoying, however. He can't even reach the sims trapped inside. He just coughs and sobs, jumping through holes in the ground to reappear elsewhere... but never in the little 4-tile room. Everybody loves motherfucking clowns.



Mr. Victim briefly stood up. Here we can see him whimpering, about to piss himself. The clown is weeping and falling into a void up in the corner there, too.



Oh look, one of the neighbours has come to pay a visit! Too bad there's no doorbell, and not a damned thing for her to do! Look how uncomfortable she is! She can't leave though--not until she's rung the doorbell that doesn't exist! This is a death trap for more than just the two sims contained within The Box...



Mr. Victim has pissed himself, and is crying out for a shower. The clown is still weeping away, joined by our lovely neighbour who is also standing in her own puddle of piss for some inexplicable reason.



Things are going pretty damned far downhill at this point. Neighbor lady has passed out in her own urine, and the sims in The Box are getting pretty damned ripe. They scream and gnash their teeth, begging me, their cruel, heartless deity, to have mercy. I am laughing with much glee. When your life is so crappy that it's almost comic, hope that the gods aren't bored.



I figure at this point that my little victims deserve a break, so I give them the gift of FIRE! Ahh yes, a nice, cheery fire to light up their cage. Whatever could go wrong? Oh SHIT! It's my favourite game - YOU'RE ON FIRE!



Mrs. Victim is thus far spared from the cleansing flames by standing in the puddle of Mr. Victim's urine. The deceased Mr. Victim. Death is pretty pissed off about there being no door, by the way. You see his hands? I'm pretty sure that's a "what the FUCK?" gesture. Mrs. Victim is yelling and screaming. Maybe she's screaming about the fire, maybe she's screaming about the clown. I, being the closest thing her AI ass has to a deity, am doing my part by slamming a shot of vodka and chortling merrily away.



In the meantime, the entire neighbourhood is whimpering and standing in puddles of their own urine.



BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I don't really have to say anything else here, do I?



Man, that newspaper girl is one stone-cold bitch. Everyone wants to leave, but there is NO WAY OUT.



I eventually put a door in for the neighbours because their weeping annoys me, but it doesn't work. I think they all eventually drink some poisoned kool-aid(tm) or something.




6.13.05 @ 12:28 AM pdt [add 2 cents]



Enigmatic grave, answers

Here are the answers from cryptic crosswords the other day.. does anyone care?

The mist erased that man (6) = MISTER
"mist" + "er" are contained in "mist erased", and "that man" could define "mister"

Do you care badly about that piece of land? (4) = ACRE
"care" rearranged ("badly") can spell "acre", a synonym for "piece of land"

Halt! Inverted pots sing chaos! (4,4) = STOP SIGN
"pots" backwards ("inverted") is "stop", and "sing" rearranged ("chaos") is "sign", together they mean "Halt!"

I heard a singing group of ponies in their pen (7) = CHORALE
"heard" tips off that this is an audio clue: a ponies' pen could be a "corral" which sounds like "chorale", a singing group

Prisoners see their penalties empathized (8) = CONVICTS
"prisoners" can be "convicts" and "penalties" can be "convicts" - words that look the same (see is the hint) but with a different emphasis.. yes "empathized" was a typo, so sorry! my bad

Recently I posted a void, I blame a bad sinew (7,2,3) = NOTHING IS NEW
"a void" means "nothing", "sinew" can be rearranged (bad) to "is new", together they are the title of a recent post here

6.12.05 @ 11:44 PM pdt [add 2 cents]



Random kudos and weirdness

Quentin Tarantino
Kudos to the usually dopey-acting guy, who did something classy at the MTV Movie Awards when his Kill Bill Volume 2 won the Best Fight award. He brought to the podium and introduced the real winners of the award, Zoe Bell and Monica Staggs, the movie's stunt doubles for Uma Thurman and Darryl Hannah. He went on to act dopey and incoherent as usual, but acknowledging the real fighters was a nice touch.

Yoshio Yamakawa and Tsuzuki Nakauchi
Probably the last two WWII Japanese soldiers still hiding out in the jungle were discovered last week in the Philippines. The two men wanted to return to Japan but didn't know the war had ended and were afraid of being court martialled. The 87- and 83-year-old win the perseverence prize.

Pam Hearne
The Floral Park, NY resident heard a "loud crash" and discovered a human leg in her yard, complete with Adidas sneaker and sock, hip and spine. Apparently someone had tried to stow away in the wheel well of a jet en route from Johannesburg, South Africa to New York via Senegal and was uh.. cut in half. When the wheels were lowered for landing at JFK, half of the guy fell out and onto Ms. Hearne's lawn.

Brian Collins
The Ball State University broadcasting student was gutsy enough to go on Letterman and air his humiliating tv debut, where he nervously fumbled his way through his first on-air sports report on a student news show. But he included four words in the sad tv report that have caught on and are in use in sportscasts around the country: "Boom goes the dynamite." Watch the video

New Old Bill
A York, England hospital has ended a rash of crime and violence by posting life-size cardboard cutouts of police in the lobby.

Thomas Stefanelli
An attempted robbery ended with the 37-year-old Tampa, FL pizza delivery dude getting shot in the thigh, but he continued and finished his route, delivering four more pizzas before going to a hospital.

Some get in, some don't
22-year-old Canadian Gregory Despres showed up at a border crossing in Maine carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles, and a chain saw that appeared to have blood on it. Immigration officers took the weapons and let him into the USA. The next day the decapitated body of a 74-year-old country musician was found in Despres' New Brunswick kitchen. His head was in a pillowcase nearby, and his wife was dead in the bedroom. Despres was subsequently arrested in Massachusetts, where he was wandering down a road wearing a shirt with red and brown stains.

Meanwhile, 40-year-old Cuban Rafael Diaz Rey spent weeks converting a 1949 Mercury taxi into a freedom raft. He and 13 others crossed most of the 90 miles from Cuba to Miami in the turquoise cab, only to be intercepted by the US Coast Guard 15 miles short of their target. Rey, his wife and two children have proper documentation and will be allowed to stay - the other ten taxi passengers will be sent back to Cuba.

6.11.05 @ 11:09 PM pdt [add 2 cents]



Views: The Woodsman

The Woodsman 2004, dir. Nicole Kassell

(contains spoilers)

I'd been looking forward to this one - I like Kevin Bacon and I like edgy subject matter - but The Woodsman really disappointed. It's got amateurish direction, unrealistic character dialog & actions, sloppy continuity, and worst of all, it chickens out and never says whatever it was trying to say.

Anyone who pays any attention to current movies knows this one has Kevin Bacon portraying a pedophile. The filmmakers knew this fact would be touted around during the pre-release publicity and post-release reviews, yet they spend way too long in the beginning drawing out the "mystery" of what his secret is, what his crime had been about. We already know - get on with it!

They also ask us to swallow far more coincidences than are plausible. For instance, the newly-paroled sex offender just happens to have a guy stalking kids right outside his window. Also, too many scenes are contrived and make for soap-opera melodrama and very cheap, easy shots: Bacon just happens to be standing on a bus (which has empty seats) so a little girl can brush against him and freak him out.. he is seated during all his many other bus rides. The bedroom door is closed although no one else is there, just so Bacon can dramatically open said door, point, and angrily tell girlfriend Kyra Sedgwick to "get out."

He lives across the street from a grammar school and says he likes watching the kids arrive in the morning - but he works at a lumbermill. Surely he's already at work or at least on his way by the time a K-6 school opens. Two people who know he works a regular M-F day job ask him if the noise from the school bothers him. Come on! He's at work when school's open - well, except for the many, many times he stares wistfully out the window at the kids in the playground. And to make it worse, one of the people who asks that question is Bacon's brother-in-law, who knows why he was in prison, but he asks about the noise of all things? Nothing about all those kids under Bacon's nose? It's not like he's being polite or feigning ignorance of the crime: he's married to Bacon's sister, who refuses to see him. The brother-in-law is well aware of his place in the middle of these two and why, but he asks about noise from the school. Eyeroll moment #23.

We've also got a parole officer - in Philadelphia - who apparently has enough time to follow and observe Bacon pretty much all the time. I don't think Philly parole officers have that kind of time on their hands, do they?

As if all that isn't enough distraction away from whatever story we're trying to follow, when the lumberyard workers get off work early in the movie, it's early spring and still light. A few weeks later it's dark when they clock out. Maybe it's a progressive lumberyard with flex scheduling.. yea, that must be it.

But wait, there's more: the metaphors are not only mixed in this movie, they're everywhere, flying around and out of control. First we've got a wood theme, in the title and the lumberyard and a lovingly-crafted cherrywood table that plays a supporting role (for no apparent reason.) We've also got a bird theme that starts when Bacon hangs up a bird feeder - suddenly he's the "Birdman of Alcatraz" and a sympathetic character, except for the overblown symbolism everwhere that pre-adolescent girls are like birds to him. Then we drift over to "Little Red Riding Hood" and discover the title refers to the guy who hacked open the big bad wolf, setting Red free and miraculously unharmed. Oh hey, unharmed, I get it.. so if a pedophile molests but doesn't actually rape, knife, or kill the kids, it's all good? Ok, got it.

It all merges together later, when Bacon stalks a little girl who's into.. birdwatching! Her name is.. Robin! Coincidentally, her daddy molests her in the same way.. Bacon likes! Wow, what are the odds? Even though Robin's dialog is off the charts as far as credibility ("My daddy lets me sit on his lap" - lets? LETS?? She would not make this confession with the word "lets"!) But this is, of course, A Shining Magical Wondrous Defining Moment for our hero/anti-hero: he realizes how wrong he's been, and he sends little Robin home.. to creepy Daddy! She heads off, throwing her bright red riding hood coat over her shoulder! (Sorry, but the little girl's bright red coat revelation was a one-use-only movie scene, and Spielberg did it - much better - in Schindler's List.)

Following bad movie tradition, the Shining Defining Moment instantly turns Bacon into a militant anti-pedophile activist, and he beats the crap out of the guy he's been watching stalk the playground kids.. after the guy has taken a little boy and done whatever he did to him. It isn't about protecting the kids, see, it's about assaulting the perpetrators after the fact. Ok, got it. The ever-observant parole officer with time on his hands questions Bacon about the severe attack in the neighborhood, and about the scratch on Bacon's neck, but apparently doesn't see anything odd about Bacon's hands that just broke someone's jaw and nearly killed the guy. Parole dude also takes in stride parolee's statement that he's moving in with his girlfriend, but doesn't bother to ask where.. I guess he'll just follow the truck over there.

But the worst thing about this movie is that it totally cops out on the delicate subject matter it pretends to be "brave" enough to tackle. The filmmakers define chickenshit on this one. They can't decide if they're sympathetic to Bacon's character or repulsed, or how we should feel about him, and they can't even bring themselves to describe his crimes and early incest experiences as anything more than "smelling her hair." They throw around a lot of talk show pop psychology buzzwords, and obviously have no real understanding of their subject matter at all.

Bacon seems to be carrying around a lot of guilt, but he makes several comments that make it clear the only thing he really resents are the 12 years spent in prison. That lost time is what he regrets.. not what put him there. He cries out one time that he's "not a monster" and he tells Sedgwick that he "never hurt" any of his victims, using that convenient "no harm, no foul" rule again. He's angry and surly and miserable the whole time, which inexplicably draws Kyra Sedgwick's attention. She sees "something good in him, even if he can't." Well, she's a tough, hot-tempered, cussing forklift driver who hates every other guy she knows, so sure, she's gonna fall for the sullen guy who can't look her in the eyes. It all makes sense. And of course, in yet another amazing coincidence, she was molested by her brothers as a child - but no harm done! (Eyeroll moment #72)

Even worse than that, and this is criminal in my opinion, the only parts of this movie that come close to being truthful and heartfelt were deleted. The DVD deleted and extra scenes show an expanded conversation with little Robin that's gut wrenching, and in which Bacon actually gives her the proper advice on what to do instead of just sending her back to Daddy. An extended conversation with girlfriend Sedgwick where he actually describes some of his pain, anger, and confusion - honestly - was also cut from the film. These are the only scenes that ring true and put a spotlight on pedophilia from both the perpetrator's and the victim's view.. and they were cut.

Cast-wise, we're ok considering all the handicaps they're up against. Bacon does a decent if flat job, considering the lousy direction, although he's sullen to the point of being a zombie for most of it. The attraction between him and Sedgwick is never clear - both are mostly unlikeable - and their steamy sex scenes almost make us feel like creepy voyeurs since we know they've been married forever - are they acting or is this what their sex is like? Is this their bedroom at home?

We are blessed again to have Mos Def in this one, who makes the most of the unfathomable parole officer and pulls it off expertly. Eve is barely recognizable and quite good as the lumberyard catty office chick with a Mary Kay connection, and her boss David Alan Grier saves a scene or two as well. Benjamin Bratt is confusing as the Latino brother-in-law who understands all the issues and problems in his life, but is shocked and surprised whenever any of them are mentioned.

Bacon is credited as co-executive producer so I guess we can be grateful the whole mess wasn't messier: he probably saved quite a few scenes from what might have been even worse. It might have all been left up to producer Lee Daniels who, in another DVD extra, gives an interview worthy of a top comedian. He's like an SNL parody of a movie producer - for instance, he says that after Monster's Ball, "the world was my oysture" and then goes on to whine about not being able to get anyone to talk to him about this one. He talks in cliches, we're just waiting for him to say "let's do lunch." He announces proudly that none of the actors got paid, and says he tried to talk Kevin Bacon out of being in this movie "because he's such a good actor." Huh?

Perhaps much is explained about this lackluster movie in Daniels' interview. He refers to Nicole Kassell, the film's director and co-writer, as "little Nicki Kassell"; he refers to co-executive producer and funder Marvet Britto as "a little angel"; and he calls The Woodsman itself "this little film". Sadly, that's just what this little man has given us here: a very little film, that should have been, that could have been, a giant.

book & movie notes are accompanied by links to browse or buy from Amazon.com

6.11.05 @ 1:34 AM pdt [add 2 cents]



Enigmatic grave, cold without end

Have you ever tried to solve a cryptic or British style crossword puzzle? They look easy at first glance - fewer clues and words, fewer intersecting words, and a lot of blank space.. until you try to solve it. You can end up wondering WTF? Did I lose my mind, or did they? But once you get the hang of them they can be fun and addictive, and the kind of mental exercise that keeps mental stagnation (or senility) at bay.

If the title of today's entry were in a cryptic crossword, the answer to write (or type) into the little boxes would be CRYPTIC.

HUH?? you say.

Cryptic clues usually come in parts and usually have (at least) two paths to the answer. In this example, "enigmatic" is a synonym for the answer. It could be a stand-alone clue in a regular crossword. Now take the rest separately: "grave" is a synomym for CRYPT; and "cold" becomes ice or icy which without its end becomes IC. CRYPT+IC = CRYPTIC.

Confusing? Yep. And that's just one version of cryptic clue. Figuring out which type of clue is being used is usually the key to solving, but some clues come with hints letting you know what to try.

Note that cryptics give you the number of letters and/or words in the answer, and be warned that doing British cryptics you will sometimes run across Britspeak in the clue/answer combinations. But computers are wonderful - solving this type of puzzle online saves a lot of erasers.

Here are a few of the more common clue types, and examples taken from the June 10, 2005 puzzle from The Herald, Glasgow, which you can find here, at least for now.

Container:
Lots of people argue in the Civil Defense (5) = CROWD
"argue" = ROW, which is in the Civil Defense = CD. "Lots of people" is a synonym for CROWD.

Anagram:
Scuttle off for something to eat (7) = CUTLETS
off here means to rearrange the letters in "scuttle" to come up with CUTLETS, which is something to eat. Anagram clues are common and usually have words like mix, chaos, disturbed, wrong, etc. to indicate you need to rearrange the letters of a nearby word.

Another example from The Herald puzzle:
Put England into terrible danger, making a bomb (7) = GRENADE
terrible says to mix up the letters of "danger" plus an added E for England, combining an anagram with an initial clue. The result makes a synonym for bomb.

Initials or ends:
The above example also demonstrates an initial clue - using E for England; and today's entry title demonstrates an ending clue - ICY without end. You'll also see Roman numerals, letter i for number 1, and all kinds of abbreviations, acronyms and initials. Very often these clues have hints like "beheaded" or "starting" or "finish" or "tail", especially if they aren't standard abbreviations.

Hidden words or phrases,and reversals:
These work like anagrams but the letters in the answer aren't mixed up; they're in order in the clue, forward or backward. They might be palindromes (same word backward and forward) or they might involve parts of different words. I haven't found one in the example puzzle (I haven't been able to complete it yet..) but an example might be:
An age when things are looking up (3) = ERA
This would probably be a "down" clue: if you read "are" looking up you get ERA, a synonym for "an age". If you have a really long and bizarre clue, it's often got hidden words in it. If it refers to "up" or "down" for a "down" word, or "back" or "reverse" for an "across" word, that's another hint to look for hidden words.

Soundalikes or audio clues:
Not a lot of money to instigate legal proceedings, we hear (3) = SOU
we hear tips you that this is an audio clue: "sou" (not a lot of money) and "sue" (instigate legal proceedings) sound the same.

Combination clues:
These are common, and what will drive you nuts but keep you coming back. Today's title and GRENADE above are actually combination clues. Here's another:
I speak about nasty curse (4,3) = EVILEYE
This one combines a soundalike (the hint is speak) "I" sounds like EYE; with a container (the hint is about). Put that EYE about or around VILE, a synomym for "nasty", and you get E+VILE+EYE = EVILEYE.

These are some of the more common solving methods you'll find, but there are many more. You don't need to know or memorize them all right away, because you can work across & down like a standard puzzle to fill in blanks, and there is almost always a double meaning or path for every clue. Here is a good list of most types of clues with examples though, if you find yourself getting hooked: Cryptic Crosswords by Val Burton.

Remember that this is the type of daily crossword puzzles found in most British newspapers.. and people do them. (The British education system also produces generally better knowledge of geography, world politics, spelling, grammar, math, history, etc. than the average American education does.)

Here are a few to get you started.. answers in a day or two!

The mist erased that man (6)

Do you care badly about that piece of land? (4)

Halt! Inverted pots sing chaos! (4,4)

I heard a singing group of ponies in their pen (7)

Prisoners see their penalties empathized (8)

Recently I posted a void, I blame a bad sinew (7,2,3)


p.s. Why am I writing about all this? I came across a cryptic puzzle today and remembered I used to enjoy working on them. I also wrote a cheesy little program to make cryptic puzzles years & years ago on my Sinclair computer. It was a wonderful and tiny machine, probably the first affordable home computer, and it was very affordable. It used the tv for a monitor, it had 1k memory (til you turned it off, then zero), and it had to be programmed in BASIC. That was a learning curve for me that's served me well since; the cryptic-writing program was just an exercise for me to learn BASIC.. I didn't think it would ever be of interest to anyone else. Well, looking for a good list of cryptic clue hints for this post today, I found far more programs for sale to make cryptic and crossword puzzles than I found lists for how to solve them. Just goes to show you.. another idea, 20 years ahead of its time, that didn't make me rich lol!

6.9.05 @ 9:55 PM pdt [add 2 cents]



Body (double) Worlds

I featured BodyWorlds as the Link o' the Day back on March 28.. along with a recommendation for every owner-operator of a human body to click, and to go see the exhibit if it comes anywhere near you.

The mind-blowing exhibit of plastinated real human bodies has caused a lot of commotion and controversy wherever it's appeared, from a variety of factions. Professor Gunther von Hagens is the mad genius behind the traveling exhibit. He and his team replace all fluids from donated bodies with plastics, enabling our innards to be seen as they look inside us - something nobody but surgical teams have been able to do before - and then he tops that by posing the bodies in artistic and whimsical ways to show us how the muscle, skeletal, blood, and organ systems work. It's a bit creepy but not the total gross-out it sounds like. It's part art, part science, and truly overpowering in its scope. "Wow, I got all that inside me, right now!" BodyWorlds also shows us what various diseases look like, and words like cancer and heart disease take on a whole new meaning.

Von Hagens' theory is simple: he believes that we have a right to know what's inside of us. Religious, cultural, and conservative groups have tried to stop him, so far to no avail. In England, when conservatives threatened to ban the exhibit, he invoked an archaic law allowing public autopsies and he performed one on live television. The London exhibit was subsequently sold out with people standing in line several hours to get in.

Now there is at least one copycat exhibit making the rounds: The Universe Within is currently in San Francisco. At first I was jazzed, figuring I was going to get to see another version of BodyWorlds (like Barnum & Bailey, they have a couple different exhibitions touring the world).. but no, this is someone else's plastinated bodies. And that's where the problem lies.

It turns out that The Universe Within has a couple of controversies going at the moment. For one, several of his displays were seen oozing moisture, and some were actually dripping liquid. This can't be good. Apparently Gerhard Perner (an Austrian tv producer) and his partner Tom Lancia, the guys behind the copycat exhibition, took a rush approach and didn't process the bodies properly before infusing them with plastics. The process takes months the way Von Hagens and his team do it, and none of their exhibits leave a puddle on the floor.

The other problem is the origin of the bodies. Von Hagens and BodyWorlds have a list of 6,000 people to date who have pledged their remains for plastination and future exhibits. The Universe Within claims their bodies came from a Beijing university, folks who have donated their bodies "to science". Although the educational value of these exhibitions is immense, private study in a medical school isn't quite the same as traveling the world on display for paid admission. A San Francisco county supervisor is trying to get The Universe Within shut down because she says such displays of the dead go against Chinese culture, especially if the people on display didn't agree to it before dying.

Gerhard Perner and The Universe Within also have a little problem with their credentials. He claims to be affiliated with the Medical University in Beijing and another university in Vienna: neither have heard of him.

So if you go in search of a plastinated bodies exhibition, be aware that there is one real, original BodyWorlds, and at least one copycat who seems a bit dodgy. But it's still a fascinating way to spend an hour or two, and get a new perspective on everything you carry around inside you. I'll let you know if I make it to The Universe Within, but I'm far more looking forward to BodyWorlds arriving here.



All photos here are from BodyWorlds. Their site is down at the moment - hopefully it'll be back up soon.. do check again if not, or try this alternate URL.

Watch a news video on the copycat exhibition and its problems.

6.8.05 @ 2:50 AM pdt [add 2 cents]



Monkeyblog



This begs the question: Would 1,000 monkeys sitting in a room banging on typewriters eventually duplicate every blog on the web?

6.7.05 @ 2:27 AM pdt [add 2 cents]



Views: Happiness

Happiness 1998, dir. Todd Solondz

This movie is about seriously messed up people, all of whom seem perfectly "normal" and "happy", but are neither. Like most real people, they don't acknowledge their serious character flaws to the world, to each other, or in most cases, to themselves.

The action revolves around three sisters and various others in their lives. Jane Adams plays Joy, an optimistic, mousey loser who lands herself in one dodgy situation after another. She seems oblivious to her failures - the only thing that really bothers her is her family's constant references to her lack of achievements; she seems to accept her lackluster life that prompts their comments. Lara Flynn Boyle is a successful, sophisticated writer living close to the fast lane but unaware of how unfulfilled her life is. Cynthia Stevenson plays the seemingly-happily married mom, proud of living the definition of "typical" in the New Jersey suburbs. She holds her life up to the others as the example of perfection and happiness, although she's incapable of intimacy, and she's elevated her subtle, cheerful digs during conversation into a passive-aggressive art form. Dylan Baker plays her husband, a psychologist who's far more messed up than most of his patients.

Their parents - Ben Gazzara and Louise Lasser - are on the verge of separation, which surprises everyone and no one. They are both great - Gazzara has aged well and is perfect as the emotionally distant husband and father. Lasser ("Mary Hartman") hasn't aged quite as well - or does a brilliant acting job - but it's good to see her again. She's perfect as the suddenly about-to-be-single older woman who usually seems on the verge of hysteria.

The large cast of additional characters is led by Philip Seymour Hoffman, a patient of the shrink who lives in the same building as the writer. He plays disturbing well a guy who's terrified by women except when he's making anonymous, obscene phone calls. Jon Lovitz, Camryn Manheim, Molly Shannon, and Elizabeth Ashley are among the seemingly odd mix of supporting actors, all of whom work just right in their parts. Even Marla Maples makes an appearance as a perky real estate saleswoman, and she has a great "gotcha" line for Donald Trump when offering encouragement to Louise Lasser: "Divorce was the best thing that ever happened to me."

Director Todd Solondz, who also wrote the script, does an amazing job of keeping it all too real as the various characters' stories unfold, each in its own disturbing detail. The often coincidental connections between the various characters are believable throughout, and their various pretenses of pretending nothing is wrong even more so. Solondz even appears in a cameo as a doorman. The soundtrack adds another surreal layer, mixing in classical, tango, Barry Manilow, and Air Supply when we'd least expect each.

This movie has some very disturbing themes and is not for the squeamish.. not in the gory sense but in terms of the subject matter itself. But Solondz does an excellent job of presenting the nasty stuff with just enough dark humor to make us keep watching. The scene in which Dylan Baker explains sex to his 11-year-old son borders on hilarious ("'Come' can also be used as a verb"), if we didn't know what we do about him.

Solondz also made the excellent Welcome to the Dollhouse with Heather Matarazzo, one of the saddest and funniest coming-of-age flicks out there. He had given up moviemaking until a series of flukes caused Dollhouse to come in to being - I'm glad, or he wouldn't have made that and gone on to Happiness.

book & movie notes are accompanied by links to browse or buy from Amazon.com

6.5.05 @ 10:51 PM pdt [add 2 cents]



Nothing is new, part 2



6.2.05 @ 1:30 AM pdt [add 2 cents]