Saturday, January 31, 2009
Medical Magic
Breaking news: Daniel Radcliffe's stunt double for the Harry Potter films has been rushed to the hospital. Though a spokeswizard for St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries refused to comment, inside sources tell us that he is being treated for a serious case of the Body-Binding Curse, as well as for a small outbreak of dragon pox.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Diagnosis: Cello
This is a load off of my mind. It turns out that cello scrotum is not, in fact, a real disease. Whew! This means I can play the cello naked for as long as I want, and suffer no ill effects.
Of course, this news is little comfort to the poor people suffering from diseases like guitarist's nipple, drummer's elbow, clarinetist's jaw, accordionist's toe, banjo player's gall bladder, and so many others.
Of course, this news is little comfort to the poor people suffering from diseases like guitarist's nipple, drummer's elbow, clarinetist's jaw, accordionist's toe, banjo player's gall bladder, and so many others.
My Heart Hurts...
...Just reading about this. Could you possibly make the Bacon Explosion less healthy? I suppose you could, but it'd probably involve deep-fat frying, chocolate, and powdered sugar.
It goes without saying, of course, that I really want to try this thing for myself. Anything described as being "spackled with sausage" is too good to resist.
It goes without saying, of course, that I really want to try this thing for myself. Anything described as being "spackled with sausage" is too good to resist.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Doorway to Change
Now, normally I'd mock the president mercilessly for making a mistake like this. But I'm afraid I've lost my credibility after an, um...incident this morning.
Anyway, I was going for a run this morning. I put on my shirt, sweater, gloves, and hat (it was a bit nippy out there). I step out into the hallways and start striding purposefully towards the door. Then I feel a bit of a draft...
Long story short, I had forgotten to put on my pants. If I hadn't caught myself, there's not telling how far I would've jogged in my underwear. Considering that this wasn't the first time I've made that mistake, I'd rather not know the answer to that question.
Anyway, I was going for a run this morning. I put on my shirt, sweater, gloves, and hat (it was a bit nippy out there). I step out into the hallways and start striding purposefully towards the door. Then I feel a bit of a draft...
Long story short, I had forgotten to put on my pants. If I hadn't caught myself, there's not telling how far I would've jogged in my underwear. Considering that this wasn't the first time I've made that mistake, I'd rather not know the answer to that question.
Rejected Tourist Slogans
Come to Sunny Dubai--It's Like Swimming in a Toilet!
Or how about, Dubai--The Vacation Lasts a Week. The Memories, a Lifetime. The E. Coli, 4-6 Weeks.
Or how about, Dubai--The Vacation Lasts a Week. The Memories, a Lifetime. The E. Coli, 4-6 Weeks.
For Love of the Game
Most people like sports. They watch sports on TV, they listen to sports on the radio, and, in the name of sports, they paint their faces and act like idiots in front of tens of thousands of other people. Granted, most of those tens of thousands also have painted their faces and are also acting like idiots, but it still requires guts. I went to three football games before I finally loosened up enough to join in chants of “DE-FENSE!”
The NFL wouldn’t be a billion-dollar industry, and fantasy football a billion-dollar drain on workplace productivity, if there weren’t a lot of sports fans out there. Though I don’t have any hard figures, I’d bet the number of websites devoted to sports is second only to the number of porn sites. That’s a mountain that will never be scaled, but sports comes closer than any other subject.
But just like there are those who dislike the Beatles, or who think “The Godfather” was a terrible movie, or who think pizza is disgusting, there are a few oddballs who don’t like sports. I divide them into two categories. There are those I can stand, and those I cannot.
First, the tolerable ones. Heck, they’re more than tolerable; most of them are perfectly fine, sensible people. It’s just that, for some peculiar reason, they never got into sports. Maybe it was the way they were brought up. Maybe their parents were zealously anti-sports. Or perhaps they had a bad experience with sports in their childhood. They were terrorized by a mascot, or klonked on the head by a foul ball.
They aren’t aggressive about not liking sports. They appreciate that other people like sports, but they themselves are sincerely not interested. If they hear a game going on the TV, they might glance in, ask who’s ahead, and then pop out again. They view sports the way most of us see stamp-collecting: we know a lot of people enjoy it, and we can’t help but thinking those people are a little crazy.
Then there’s the second category. If the first group of people have a passive tolerance of sports, these people actively proclaim their hatred for all things sporting. They proudly say things like, “I just don’t understand what people see in football!” Or, “Who wants to watch a bunch of genetic freaks trying to stuff a ball through a hoop.” They say these things, and they’re dead serious about it.
To them, I would quote the semi-immortal words of the Joker: “Why so serious?” These kind of people are uniquely humorless when it comes to sports, or to fun in general. They turn up their nose at baseball, football, or basketball, not because they’re not interested, but because they want to seem superior. Rooting for a team? Painting your face? Getting worked up over a game? So common! So plebian! Yes, they use words like plebian. Trust me, I know these people.
As far as I know, there is no external cure for this form of anti-sports-itis. The more you urge these people to get over their hang-ups and actually watch a game, the more you play into their hands. Try it. Ask them to join you in watching, say, a college basketball game, and they’ll probably sniff about having more important things to do. Never mind that those more important things probably even lying in bed and re-reading “Harry Potter.” They’re busy, damn it!
No, like a soda machine, the change must come from within. They won’t like sports until they can appreciate that sports are fun precisely because they are meaningless. We can get wrapped up in them, pour all of our emotions into one match, one rivalry, one player, because there’s no risk. Sure, we’ll feel lousy if we lose, but only a nutcase is going to slit their throat because Georgetown lost last night.
Ironically, it’s these anti-sportites who overvalue athletics. And that’s why they will never, ever, find anything fun. They can only like something if it’s not fun. They’re the kind of people who take up something like…oh, coin collecting, I suppose.
The NFL wouldn’t be a billion-dollar industry, and fantasy football a billion-dollar drain on workplace productivity, if there weren’t a lot of sports fans out there. Though I don’t have any hard figures, I’d bet the number of websites devoted to sports is second only to the number of porn sites. That’s a mountain that will never be scaled, but sports comes closer than any other subject.
But just like there are those who dislike the Beatles, or who think “The Godfather” was a terrible movie, or who think pizza is disgusting, there are a few oddballs who don’t like sports. I divide them into two categories. There are those I can stand, and those I cannot.
First, the tolerable ones. Heck, they’re more than tolerable; most of them are perfectly fine, sensible people. It’s just that, for some peculiar reason, they never got into sports. Maybe it was the way they were brought up. Maybe their parents were zealously anti-sports. Or perhaps they had a bad experience with sports in their childhood. They were terrorized by a mascot, or klonked on the head by a foul ball.
They aren’t aggressive about not liking sports. They appreciate that other people like sports, but they themselves are sincerely not interested. If they hear a game going on the TV, they might glance in, ask who’s ahead, and then pop out again. They view sports the way most of us see stamp-collecting: we know a lot of people enjoy it, and we can’t help but thinking those people are a little crazy.
Then there’s the second category. If the first group of people have a passive tolerance of sports, these people actively proclaim their hatred for all things sporting. They proudly say things like, “I just don’t understand what people see in football!” Or, “Who wants to watch a bunch of genetic freaks trying to stuff a ball through a hoop.” They say these things, and they’re dead serious about it.
To them, I would quote the semi-immortal words of the Joker: “Why so serious?” These kind of people are uniquely humorless when it comes to sports, or to fun in general. They turn up their nose at baseball, football, or basketball, not because they’re not interested, but because they want to seem superior. Rooting for a team? Painting your face? Getting worked up over a game? So common! So plebian! Yes, they use words like plebian. Trust me, I know these people.
As far as I know, there is no external cure for this form of anti-sports-itis. The more you urge these people to get over their hang-ups and actually watch a game, the more you play into their hands. Try it. Ask them to join you in watching, say, a college basketball game, and they’ll probably sniff about having more important things to do. Never mind that those more important things probably even lying in bed and re-reading “Harry Potter.” They’re busy, damn it!
No, like a soda machine, the change must come from within. They won’t like sports until they can appreciate that sports are fun precisely because they are meaningless. We can get wrapped up in them, pour all of our emotions into one match, one rivalry, one player, because there’s no risk. Sure, we’ll feel lousy if we lose, but only a nutcase is going to slit their throat because Georgetown lost last night.
Ironically, it’s these anti-sportites who overvalue athletics. And that’s why they will never, ever, find anything fun. They can only like something if it’s not fun. They’re the kind of people who take up something like…oh, coin collecting, I suppose.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Mini-Review: The Best Game Ever
Mark Bowden’s “The Best Game Ever” is as straightforward as its name implies. There was once a game. It was the best ever. Mark Bowden will tell you about it. It’s a slim little book, less than three hundred pages. But it packs more explosive power than a dozen Tom Clancy novels pasted together with plastic explosive.
The Best Game Ever might be a bit of a misnomer. To be precise, it’s the best football game ever. The year—1958. The place—Yankee Stadium. Yes, Yankee Stadium. Remember, back in the 50s “America’s sport” meant cowskin, not pigskin. As Bowden points out, football was still a sideshow to America’s pastime. It was a sport for rowdies and roughnecks, played by men who clobbered each other for a couple months and then spent the rest of the year doing real jobs.
The game itself was the 1958 NFL Championship game between the New York Giants and the Indianapolis—sorry, the Baltimore—Colts. This was way, way back, when Colts-Giants didn’t mean Manning vs. Manning. It meant Unitas vs. Huff.
“Unitas,” of course, is Johnny Unitas, the flat-topped gridiron god still considered by many to be the greatest quarterback in history. The name “Huff” is a little less familiar. But Sam Huff was big back in his day, and in 1958 he was a bigger star than even the Golden Arm. He was the originator of the middle linebacker position, a ferocious competitor who declared that his only goal was the hurt everyone he hit.
That’s one of the greatest pleasures of Bowden’s book. It introduces us to the football heroes from the days of yore, back when a pass of any kind was considered a “long bomb” and when offensive lineman still looked like beefy people rather than beefy mastodons.
There’s Alan Amache, nicknamed “The Horse,” a massive fullback who was unstoppable near the goal line. Gil Marchetti of the Colts was one of the most feared defensive ends of the day. For the Giants, there was Frank Gifford, the glamorous halfback with movie star looks and Hollywood ambitions. Charlie Conerly, the Giants QB, didn’t just look like the Marlboro Man—he was the Marlboro Man. And then there’s my personal favorite, “Big Daddy” Lipscomb, the gargantuan defensive lineman who once asked, after sacking an opposing quarterback, “Little man, what you run so much for?”
Where Bowden excels is his ability to describe things. He doesn’t go in for much philosophizing, though he does toss in a few paragraphs about how the 1958 game CHANGED FOOTBALL FOREVER. He just tells things the way they were: how the Colts got there, how the Giants got there, and how things went when the unstoppable force of the Colts offense meant the Giants defense, the original immovable object.
He breaks down the game, making it understandable even to someone like me, the sort of person who knows only two football plays: “pass” and “not a pass.” When Bowden describes the thrilling last-second drive engineered by Unitas, you’ll swear you can hear the Yankee Stadium crowd howling right in your ear. When lineman Gil Marchetti goes down with a broken ankle you might find yourself feeling a twinge of pain yourself.
Bowden’s best known book, the wonderful “Black Hawk Down,” deals with how men perform under pressure, as individuals and as a team. The stakes aren’t as high here; losing a game, even a championship, isn’t on par with losing your life on the blood-soaked streets of Mogadishu. But don’t tell that to Johnny Unitas or Sam Huff. For the men who played in it, the Best Game Ever was a life-and-death struggle.
Fitting, then, that the game went to sudden death. I won’t give the ending away, though the curious will no doubt check Wikipedia beforehand. But the last chapter alone, “Living to See Sudden Death,” is worth the price of admission. Especially at 1958 prices.
The Best Game Ever might be a bit of a misnomer. To be precise, it’s the best football game ever. The year—1958. The place—Yankee Stadium. Yes, Yankee Stadium. Remember, back in the 50s “America’s sport” meant cowskin, not pigskin. As Bowden points out, football was still a sideshow to America’s pastime. It was a sport for rowdies and roughnecks, played by men who clobbered each other for a couple months and then spent the rest of the year doing real jobs.
The game itself was the 1958 NFL Championship game between the New York Giants and the Indianapolis—sorry, the Baltimore—Colts. This was way, way back, when Colts-Giants didn’t mean Manning vs. Manning. It meant Unitas vs. Huff.
“Unitas,” of course, is Johnny Unitas, the flat-topped gridiron god still considered by many to be the greatest quarterback in history. The name “Huff” is a little less familiar. But Sam Huff was big back in his day, and in 1958 he was a bigger star than even the Golden Arm. He was the originator of the middle linebacker position, a ferocious competitor who declared that his only goal was the hurt everyone he hit.
That’s one of the greatest pleasures of Bowden’s book. It introduces us to the football heroes from the days of yore, back when a pass of any kind was considered a “long bomb” and when offensive lineman still looked like beefy people rather than beefy mastodons.
There’s Alan Amache, nicknamed “The Horse,” a massive fullback who was unstoppable near the goal line. Gil Marchetti of the Colts was one of the most feared defensive ends of the day. For the Giants, there was Frank Gifford, the glamorous halfback with movie star looks and Hollywood ambitions. Charlie Conerly, the Giants QB, didn’t just look like the Marlboro Man—he was the Marlboro Man. And then there’s my personal favorite, “Big Daddy” Lipscomb, the gargantuan defensive lineman who once asked, after sacking an opposing quarterback, “Little man, what you run so much for?”
Where Bowden excels is his ability to describe things. He doesn’t go in for much philosophizing, though he does toss in a few paragraphs about how the 1958 game CHANGED FOOTBALL FOREVER. He just tells things the way they were: how the Colts got there, how the Giants got there, and how things went when the unstoppable force of the Colts offense meant the Giants defense, the original immovable object.
He breaks down the game, making it understandable even to someone like me, the sort of person who knows only two football plays: “pass” and “not a pass.” When Bowden describes the thrilling last-second drive engineered by Unitas, you’ll swear you can hear the Yankee Stadium crowd howling right in your ear. When lineman Gil Marchetti goes down with a broken ankle you might find yourself feeling a twinge of pain yourself.
Bowden’s best known book, the wonderful “Black Hawk Down,” deals with how men perform under pressure, as individuals and as a team. The stakes aren’t as high here; losing a game, even a championship, isn’t on par with losing your life on the blood-soaked streets of Mogadishu. But don’t tell that to Johnny Unitas or Sam Huff. For the men who played in it, the Best Game Ever was a life-and-death struggle.
Fitting, then, that the game went to sudden death. I won’t give the ending away, though the curious will no doubt check Wikipedia beforehand. But the last chapter alone, “Living to See Sudden Death,” is worth the price of admission. Especially at 1958 prices.
Monday, January 26, 2009
???
Put this down on the list of Most Cryptic Headlines Ever. From CNN: "Banana Hammer Cold." Um...yes?
Straighten Up and Fly Right
This list is so funny, I won't even attempt to add anything to it. So instead, here's a joke free of charge!
Steve is driving down the road when he sees a man standing off in a ditch, yelling something at a grove of trees. Curious, Steve pulls over and steps out of the car. As he approaches the man, he hears him saying:
"And when we don't know the value of a number, we use x as a variable. A variable! Do you understand?"
"What on earth are you doing?" says Steve.
"Why," says the man, "I'm teaching these trees algebra."
"You're crazy!" Steve replies.
"Crazy?" the man shoots back, "Tell me then. How can you expect them to learn calculus without understanding algebra first?"
Ba-dum-dum. Sorry, that one's a work in progress.
Steve is driving down the road when he sees a man standing off in a ditch, yelling something at a grove of trees. Curious, Steve pulls over and steps out of the car. As he approaches the man, he hears him saying:
"And when we don't know the value of a number, we use x as a variable. A variable! Do you understand?"
"What on earth are you doing?" says Steve.
"Why," says the man, "I'm teaching these trees algebra."
"You're crazy!" Steve replies.
"Crazy?" the man shoots back, "Tell me then. How can you expect them to learn calculus without understanding algebra first?"
Ba-dum-dum. Sorry, that one's a work in progress.
Science Friction
Wired magazine provides a list of "10 Science Fiction Films I Cannot Wait to Share With My Kids." No! Don't do it! There's no childhood disease more lethal than sci-fi fandom.
The symptoms are subtle at first. Low-grade fever. Blotchy skin. Compulsive desire to read novels based on Star Wars movies. All treatable with regular doses of Vitamin C and ESPN.
If left unchecked, though, things can get really dangerous. Many is the parent who missed the warning signs. The next thing they knew, their kid was attending DragonCon dressed up as 7 of 9. And that's a fate worse than death.
The symptoms are subtle at first. Low-grade fever. Blotchy skin. Compulsive desire to read novels based on Star Wars movies. All treatable with regular doses of Vitamin C and ESPN.
If left unchecked, though, things can get really dangerous. Many is the parent who missed the warning signs. The next thing they knew, their kid was attending DragonCon dressed up as 7 of 9. And that's a fate worse than death.
Why I Try to Avoid Working in Retail
I really sympathize with the customer in this story. I'm sick and tired of having my keys stolen by witches. Once or twice, I can stand; four or five times, and I start to lose my temper.
Funny Money
I tried this once, and almost got away with it. Unfortunately, I had to spend all my ill-gotten loot paying a $75 luxury tax. Damn it all!
Mini-Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is a curious little movie. Well, maybe “little” isn’t the right adjective. Other words spring to mind more readily, words like “gargantuan,” “titanic,” or, to be more straightforward about it, “really, really, really long.” “Benjamin Button” sprawls out for two hours and forty-six minutes, and it feels every bit as long—if not a couple hours longer.
I admit to having a bit of a prejudice against long movies. They smell like pretension. For a director to lavish two hours and change on his movie means he thinks very, very highly of himself and his art. I ask: no matter how great your story is, does it really merit two hours of my time? My time is precious. I could be doing something valuable, like learning to play the flute, or baking a nice carrot cake. Now, I grant there are exceptions. “The Godfather” was nearly three hours, but it was worth it.
“Benjamin Button” is no “Godfather.” Heck, it’s not even a “Godfather, Part III.” It’s a nice movie that’s been overblown to grotesque proportions, like a water balloon stretched to the bursting point. Filled with sludge, I might add.
The movie’s central conceit is that the main character, the titular Benjamin Button (played by Brad Pitt) is born old and gets younger and younger. He sprouts hair from his bald dome, grows a new set of muscles, and loses his fondness for “Wheel of Fortune” and all-you-can-eat buffets. Well, I’m kidding about that last part. The rest is God’s honest truth. We follow Benjamin as he grows from a gnarled and warped centarian into a strapping Brad Pitt.
It’s an interesting idea, and director David Fincher pulls it off wonderfully—for the first act of the movie. That first hour is tinged with the wonderful, the magical, and the grotesque. We’re bombarded with fantastic images: a 100-year-old baby, a clock that runs backwards, an empty hotel in the midnight sun. It’s feels like some kind of Latin America magical realist novel brought to life.
Benjamin begins—or ends?—his life in a New Orleans old folks’ home. Unlike in the latter half of the movie, here Fincher really explores the possibilities of Benjamin’s curious condition. What would it be like for a young boy to live in the shell of an old man? Who would take care of him? Who would befriend him? Where would he find a job, find love, find sex? That last one is answered quite a few times. I still haven’t decided whether I found those scenes disgusting or hilarious.
Then we get to part two of the movie and things fall apart. Benjamin spends the first part of his life as a sailor, but it’s not till he ends up on shore that the movie goes adrift. The aging-backwards thing goes out the window. Sure, perhaps Brad Pitt’s face gets a little less lined, and some of the gray vanishes from his hair. But it’s still Brad Pitt, mostly unchanged. The idea that he’s aging in reverse is completely ignored during the movie’s middle third.
Instead of the magical realism of the first hour, we get stuck with a drearily pedestrian love story. Man-boy meets girl, man-boy loses girl, girl goes to New Orleans to find man-boy, man-boy goes to New York to find girl…you know it all by heart. Benjamin will spurn his love, Daisy (Cate Blanchett), because that’s the way it’s always done. He will feel guilty about it. And he will track her down and have passionate make-up sex.
Never let it be said that I’m not generous. I lay the blame at the feet of everyone involved, from Fincher on down. Fincher’s guilty of allowing the movie to drag. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, for their part, make a singularly uninspired couple. I think Pitt’s trying to play an Everyman. Someone ought to tell him there’s a reason nobody wins an Oscar for playing Everyman: he’s as boring as hell. We know Everyman. We live down the street from him, or work with him, or see him every day at the grocery store.
Somehow, the final third of the movie lags even more. It’s so damn slow, you expect the film to start running backwards, rather than Benjamin’s biological clock. When Benjamin leaves Daisy because he can’t take care of their kid—him being on his way back to childhood, after all—I thought the movie was over. When he meets Daisy again a few years down the road, I thought that was the end of the movie. When Daisy discovers a ten-year-old Benjamin at the hospital, I really, really hoped the movie was over. And when Daisy starts taking care of a diaper-ready Benjamin, I was praying for God to put the film out of its misery.
Finally, he did. Benjamin’s dead—how, I won’t say, but it’s singularly disappointing given all the possibilities—and so is Daisy. Wow, what a trip that was! And it only took two hours and forty six minutes. Next time, I’ll just make a carrot cake.
I admit to having a bit of a prejudice against long movies. They smell like pretension. For a director to lavish two hours and change on his movie means he thinks very, very highly of himself and his art. I ask: no matter how great your story is, does it really merit two hours of my time? My time is precious. I could be doing something valuable, like learning to play the flute, or baking a nice carrot cake. Now, I grant there are exceptions. “The Godfather” was nearly three hours, but it was worth it.
“Benjamin Button” is no “Godfather.” Heck, it’s not even a “Godfather, Part III.” It’s a nice movie that’s been overblown to grotesque proportions, like a water balloon stretched to the bursting point. Filled with sludge, I might add.
The movie’s central conceit is that the main character, the titular Benjamin Button (played by Brad Pitt) is born old and gets younger and younger. He sprouts hair from his bald dome, grows a new set of muscles, and loses his fondness for “Wheel of Fortune” and all-you-can-eat buffets. Well, I’m kidding about that last part. The rest is God’s honest truth. We follow Benjamin as he grows from a gnarled and warped centarian into a strapping Brad Pitt.
It’s an interesting idea, and director David Fincher pulls it off wonderfully—for the first act of the movie. That first hour is tinged with the wonderful, the magical, and the grotesque. We’re bombarded with fantastic images: a 100-year-old baby, a clock that runs backwards, an empty hotel in the midnight sun. It’s feels like some kind of Latin America magical realist novel brought to life.
Benjamin begins—or ends?—his life in a New Orleans old folks’ home. Unlike in the latter half of the movie, here Fincher really explores the possibilities of Benjamin’s curious condition. What would it be like for a young boy to live in the shell of an old man? Who would take care of him? Who would befriend him? Where would he find a job, find love, find sex? That last one is answered quite a few times. I still haven’t decided whether I found those scenes disgusting or hilarious.
Then we get to part two of the movie and things fall apart. Benjamin spends the first part of his life as a sailor, but it’s not till he ends up on shore that the movie goes adrift. The aging-backwards thing goes out the window. Sure, perhaps Brad Pitt’s face gets a little less lined, and some of the gray vanishes from his hair. But it’s still Brad Pitt, mostly unchanged. The idea that he’s aging in reverse is completely ignored during the movie’s middle third.
Instead of the magical realism of the first hour, we get stuck with a drearily pedestrian love story. Man-boy meets girl, man-boy loses girl, girl goes to New Orleans to find man-boy, man-boy goes to New York to find girl…you know it all by heart. Benjamin will spurn his love, Daisy (Cate Blanchett), because that’s the way it’s always done. He will feel guilty about it. And he will track her down and have passionate make-up sex.
Never let it be said that I’m not generous. I lay the blame at the feet of everyone involved, from Fincher on down. Fincher’s guilty of allowing the movie to drag. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, for their part, make a singularly uninspired couple. I think Pitt’s trying to play an Everyman. Someone ought to tell him there’s a reason nobody wins an Oscar for playing Everyman: he’s as boring as hell. We know Everyman. We live down the street from him, or work with him, or see him every day at the grocery store.
Somehow, the final third of the movie lags even more. It’s so damn slow, you expect the film to start running backwards, rather than Benjamin’s biological clock. When Benjamin leaves Daisy because he can’t take care of their kid—him being on his way back to childhood, after all—I thought the movie was over. When he meets Daisy again a few years down the road, I thought that was the end of the movie. When Daisy discovers a ten-year-old Benjamin at the hospital, I really, really hoped the movie was over. And when Daisy starts taking care of a diaper-ready Benjamin, I was praying for God to put the film out of its misery.
Finally, he did. Benjamin’s dead—how, I won’t say, but it’s singularly disappointing given all the possibilities—and so is Daisy. Wow, what a trip that was! And it only took two hours and forty six minutes. Next time, I’ll just make a carrot cake.
Oscar MAAAAAAAAAAADNESS!
My Best Picture pick--"Milk," for those of you who don't keep up with all things Will-related--is looking less and less likely, especially now that "Slumdog Millionaire" captured the top film prize at the PGA awards. I could be wrong, but I also think it took home the SAG award. And then there's the CGA and OAG prizes, but the less said about those, the better.*
I didn't really think Slumdog could do it. I thought, and still sort-of think, that the Academy will be reluctant to hand the little bald boy off to a movie that doesn't involve 1) pretentious, highbrow themes 2) a major historical figure or 3) a major historical figure caught up in pretentious, highbrow themes. Remember, Academy voters are liberal about everything except their films. When it comes to those, they're more conservative than Jerry Falwell at nine o'clock on a Sunday morning.
I've been a bit lazy, so I haven't done a full Oscar breakdown. But I'm sure you've all been craving one, so let me assure you: your patience will soon be rewarded!
*Not real prizes**
**As far as I know***
***Which isn't really that far****
****I'll stop now
I didn't really think Slumdog could do it. I thought, and still sort-of think, that the Academy will be reluctant to hand the little bald boy off to a movie that doesn't involve 1) pretentious, highbrow themes 2) a major historical figure or 3) a major historical figure caught up in pretentious, highbrow themes. Remember, Academy voters are liberal about everything except their films. When it comes to those, they're more conservative than Jerry Falwell at nine o'clock on a Sunday morning.
I've been a bit lazy, so I haven't done a full Oscar breakdown. But I'm sure you've all been craving one, so let me assure you: your patience will soon be rewarded!
*Not real prizes**
**As far as I know***
***Which isn't really that far****
****I'll stop now
Sunday, January 25, 2009
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