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Happy news today for my favorite painting.
I saw one of the four "Scream"s at an art museum in Vancouver a few years ago. The fact that one of them has been missing for the past couple years always nagged at me. I'm glad it's back.
8.29.06 Eatin' Bad in the Neighborhood Yawn—the KQED "secret plan" is precisely the same as KALW's. You can pledge money through the station's web site until Sept. 12 in the hopes of staving off the on-air drive. The announcer just mentioned that since the drive began this morning, they've already raised "over $6,000." Since their goal is $1.5 million, there's a looong way to go. Even if you don't live here, why not pledge some bucks today? I know you want that commuter mug! Joe and I are gearing up for an extended road trip this fall, so I've been musing about road food lately. Now, I'm not one of those Berkeley food snobs who refuses to eat anything that's not organically grown and transported to town in an emissions-free biodiesel vehicle. I was excited when a California Pizza Kitchen opened not far from my home, and until I got old enough to have to start worrying about boring stuff like fiber in my diet, I used to eat Pop-Tarts. But I am completely mystified by the popularity of Applebee's. Any time you venture into the 'burbs, you always see them, and they're always packed. And yet the food sucks. Joe and I went to one once (taken there by suburb-dwelling friends), and we both thought it was lousy. Last year, when my mom was ill, my dad picked up take-out from the 'bee—some kind of chicken salad, I think (all of their salads have chicken; no vegetarians welcome!)—and it was so unpleasant tasting that they wound up throwing it out. In last week's SF Weekly, one of my favorite columnists, Katy St. Clair, described the chain's food as "terrible. I mean, it's really, really bad, and trust me, I ain't picky. I eat Lunchables fer Crissake." Writers on epinions.com complain about the bland microwaved food and poor service. I can understand families with small children eating at busy chain restaurants because they're cheap and noisy enough that even if the kids make a fuss, it won't be a problem. However, why do people persist in going to such a horrible restaurant? Based on my experience, T.G.I. Friday's, Macaroni Grill and even Olive Garden are all superior to Applebee's. (I must admit that I've never tried Red Lobster; I have my limits.)
I woke up this morning after a fitful night, sure it was going to be one of these weeks:
I had about 8,000 things to do, and decided to start with a job I had estimated would take around 5-6 hours. However, when I started working with the files I had been sent, it turned out that it only took a little over an hour. (That's not because I'm a whiz—part of the job was supposed to involve recreating some lost documents, but it turned out the "missing" docs were on one of the CD-Rs after all.) Considering that I happened to choose this particular job to start off my week, I hope this bodes well for the 7,999 things that remain on my to-do list. KQED Secret Plan Update (see below): apparently, it will be revealed tomorrow! Oh, the anticipation.
A few weeks ago, I got a call from someone asking why I hadn't renewed my membership to KQED, one of our two local NPR stations. I told her that I had switched my support to its smaller competitor, KALW, because of its shorter pledge drives. As regular readers know, I listen to public radio all day long, and I hate pledge drives. Hate them! What KALW did was mention on air periodically that they were soliciting donations through the station's web site, promising that if they raised a certain amount of money, they would be able to cut their on-air drive (i.e. the one where announcers yak incessantly about all the fabulous gifts they will send you if you will only pick up the phone and call now!) to a single week. It worked, the drive was shortened, and everyone was happy. KQED Lady seemed shocked to hear that I hated pledge drives. She swore that many listeners just loved them, and specifically waited to make their donations so they could get those fabulous "thank you" gifts, like the "Big Band Magic" DVD or the ever-popular KQED Commuter Mug. However, she obviously knew she wasn't going to change my mind, so she didn't try to convince me to pony up some dough. Cut to this week. At practically every single station break, the KQED announcers have been saying things like, "We know you hate pledge drives! So do we! Well, guess what—we have a secret plan to eliminate pledge drives! Because everybody hates them!" As of this writing, the secret plan has not yet been revealed. However, I like to think that I helped bring about this turn of events. Therefore, I will put my money where my mouth is and renew my KQED membership once the super-secret scheme is out in the open. If it's just raising money through their web site prior to the on-air drive, I will admit that it will be something of a disappointment, not to mention a total rip-off of KALW's idea. I like to imagine that KQED will bring Carl Kasell and Sylvia Poggioli to the Bay Area and send them door to door to collect money. Or maybe Daniel Schorr will find a way to work your name into one of his "All Things Considered" commentaries if you donate over $1,000. As long as the plan is top-secret, I can enjoy imagining all the possibilities.
As I read about the disappointing box office results for "Snakes on a Plane," it occurred to me that the film and erstwhile presidential candidate Howard Dean have a lot in common. Dean, as you will recall, became a media sensation because of his huge Internet following. Bloggers adored him, and he raked in cash via online donations. However, when Dean finally made it to a real-life primary in the American heartland (Iowa), he fizzled; in the California primary, he wound up with a lousy 4.3% of the vote, behind even Dennis Kucinich. Obviously, the online community that clutched Dean and "Snakes" to its collective bosom is pretty small, compared to the population at large. Because of my job, I'm online almost all day long. I live in a world where Mahir, the Star Wars Kid, all your base are belong to us, "You're the man now, dog," the hampster (sic) dance and "Lazy Sunday" are common currency. But we netheads have to remember that there are millions more out there who only use the Internet for e-mail and MySpace and surfing mainstream sites. We don't yet have the power to open a movie, or elect a national candidate. (By the way, the Chronicle's Mick LaSalle gave "Snakes" a very favorable review, and it's at a respectable 65% "fresh" at Rotten Tomatoes.)
The audience at the "Snakes on a Plane" preview was primed and ready after months and months of anticipation. During a trailer for yet another remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," one character asks, "Do you know where I'm taking you?" and an audience member yelled out, "To the airport!" Snakes! Sssssssssnakes!!! (For the record, the "Borat" preview won huge cheers, while "Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny" was met with indifference. If "D" followed the usual Hollywood strategy of putting the funniest scenes in the trailer, it's going to be a mighty lame film.) "Snakes" begins incongruously, with shots of lovely Hawaiian beach scenery. We see a figure mountain-biking through the landscape. No, it's not Sam Jackson—it's a young man, Sean (Nathan Phillips), who happens to witness a grisly murder. He manages to escape, but the bad guys spot him. That's where Jackson's Agent Flynn comes in. He takes Sean into custody; his job is to transport him safely to L.A. to testify against the villain, a notorious (and dangerous) gangster. Enter the most bizarre and elaborate plot ever to prevent someone from getting to the courthouse on time—snakes on a plane! Also onboard is a large variety of characters, from a pair of young brothers traveling alone, a Latina mom with her infant, a beautiful blonde Paris Hilton type, a guy who's terrified of flying, and a clean-freak rapper and his entourage. (The rapper is shown carrying a little bottle of liquid hand sanitizer; of course, that wouldn't be allowed on board today! Will Wash 'N Dry towelettes make a comeback?) There's also a stewardess played by Julianna Margulies who is on—wait for it—her last flight prior to her retirement (she's heading to law school). All of that introductory stuff is dealt with pretty briskly, since obviously the whole point of the film is to release the snakes. And boy, are there a lot of them! I wouldn't want to spoil the fun, but suffice to say that if you want to see snakes on a plane, you won't be disappointed. Cobras, boa constrictors, rattlers, and exotic, colorful breeds. A lot of the shots are obviously CGI, but the special effects are well done—the snakes look pretty realistic (and you gotta love that neon-green "snake-o-vision," where we see the serpents' victims from their point of view). I love a so-bad-it's-good movie, but "Snakes on a Plane" isn't really outlandish enough to make it "MST3K" fodder, and director David R. Ellis helms the film competently; he's no Uwe Boll. Sure, it never takes itself too seriously and there are some silly bits, like the subplot involving "Saturday Night Live"'s Kenan Thompson as the guy who—well, you'll just have to see for yourself. But on the whole, the Internet phenomenon turned out to be a film with a fair amount of thrills and chills. At the screening I went to, there was applause at the end, and not a single hisssssss could be heard.
I thought maybe I'd be able to stay up and write a "Snakes on a Plane" review tonight, but it's 12:30 AM and I'm beat. I'll do it first thing Friday morning, which probably means it'll be up sometime around 10 AM Pacific time. Very briefly: the movie really isn't cheesy, it's a well-made and effective thriller. Anyone expecting high camp will be disappointed. To be honest, I don't find snakes all that scary (although I'll admit if there was a venomous one right in my face, I'd be terrified), but the filmmakers threw in a tremendous amount of turbulence, thunder and lightning, which frightened me so much I almost felt nauseous. I wouldn't recommend seeing this movie if you have a flight scheduled anytime in the next few weeks!
If you're an adult moviegoer, unless you have young kids, you probably don't give a lot of thought to movie ratings. When I'm deciding what to see, I tend not to care whether the films I go see are rated PG, PG-13, R or unrated (I don't know that I've ever seen an "official" NC-17 movie; most films that don't pass muster with the MPAA ratings board, like "The Aristocrats" or "Where the Truth Lies," just tend to go out with no rating at all). However, the new documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" proves that even if you think the movie rating system doesn't affect what you see, you're wrong. The film's director, Kirby Dick, is a parent himself and not against a parental rating system in general. However, he proves that the MPAA system that has been in place for almost 40 years is seriously flawed. As many industry watchers have already guessed, the board has some quirks—for instance, they're much more lenient about violence than sex, and they're particularly tough on female sexuality and gay sex. They're far stricter about mature content in independent films than in studio product, for reasons that become eminently clear during Dick's investigations. And once a film is stamped with an NC-17, its chances of getting a national release is virtually zero—most filmmakers are contractually required to deliver a finished product that's rated R or below. So who are the people deciding the fates of films from "Curious George" to "Reservoir Dogs"? Until now, that's been a closely held secret; unlike most other countries' ratings boards, the MPAA raters are an anonymous group. The specific criteria they use to decide a film's rating is also top-secret, although some observers have figured out a few points; for instance, if you want a PG-13 rating, you can use the "F" word exactly once, and it can't refer to the sex act. Dick hires a private eye, the delightful Becky Altringer, to track down the members of the MPAA board. As a mystery buff, I loved watching how Becky cracked the case; she looks like an ordinary suburban mom, but she's obviously a top-notch investigator. (Her looks must be a big help to her in her career; who would ever suspect this unassuming lady of being a shamus?) Also included in the film are numerous interviews with directors, including John Waters, Kimberly Peirce ("Boys Don't Cry"), Kevin Smith, "South Park"'s Matt Stone and Atom Egoyan, talking about their battles with the MPAA. Dick does a lot of split-screen, side-by-side comparisons, showing, for instance, a fully-clothed woman touching herself in the lesbian comedy "But I'm A Cheerleader" (slapped with NC-17) alongside a much more explicit scene of Jason Biggs humping the titular pastry of "American Pie" (R). Perhaps Dick's best point, and one I hadn't thought about before I saw the film, is that perhaps the greatest disservice of the MPAA system is its unwillingness to consult with child psychologists and other experts who have actually studied the effects of screen violence on children and youth. The board is in the pocket of the major studios, which know that teenage boys, a particularly lucrative market, love to watch violent action flicks. So it's no accident that films like "The Bourne Supremacy," "2 Fast 2 Furious" and "King Kong" skated away with PG-13s, allowing the under-17 set unimpeded access to them. In Europe, the situation is reversed; any gun violence at all usually results in a restricted rating, while a glimpse of a breast is considered no big deal. There's also the fascinating revelation that two members of the clergy, Episcopal and Catholic priests, sit on the MPAA's appeals board. I went into "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" expecting to see a polemic against the MPAA, but to be honest, it's a ridiculously entertaining and often hilarious film (any film featuring commentary by Waters and Stone is almost guaranteed to earn a lot of laughs). It's an important film, but it's also a heck of a lot of fun. It opens Sept. 1 in New York and L.A., and will expand to other cities later in the month.
A little thing I like to call vindication:
Regular readers know the shoe removal requirement drives me up a tree. (Maybe it's the Monk in me.) And now Homeland Security admits that it's completely useless, but we're still required to do it. No one (except aviation security experts) talks about the far greater threat of baggage handlers, plane cleaners, and other personnel who have a remarkable amount of access to airliners and facilities, not to mention laptop and cell phone batteries that could be used as detonators.
8.13.06 "Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?" I realize I am a total sucker for the Hollywood hype machine, but Joe & I have purchased advance tickets for Thursday evening's preview screening of "Snakes on a Plane." It's not being screened for critics, which usually isn't a good sign, but I just feel strangely compelled to see it. Anyway, check back here on Friday the 18th for my review! Also opening on Friday is "The Illusionist," which I wrote about way back in May. It's such a wonderful, romantic movie, and I hope it finds an audience. If you think they don't make 'em like they used to, go see it; I can easily see it becoming a cult classic like "Somewhere in Time." Now that "Little Miss Sunshine" is getting a wider release, I feel I should note that despite the fact that it's a film that centers around an adorable little girl, it earns its "R" rating. If you're like the chick below who was offended by James Blunt's uncensored lyrics, don't see it. But ask yourself this—say you're so angry and hard-hearted against your family that you haven't spoken for nine whole months. And say something happens that causes you to finally break your vow of silence. Something really bad. Let's face it... the first word out of your mouth would probably start with the letter "F" and rhyme with "duck."
Edited to add: The guest book works again. My fault; I messed it up while removing some spam. Looks like the guest book isn't working—I apologize to all those who tried to post spirited defenses of James Blunt—so James e-mailed me this contribution:
Well, if Nickelback are performing in Portage, you know they've got to be hot, hot, hot! In fact, the only bands hotter than Nickelback are Lifehouse and Bowling for Soup, who are playing the San Mateo County Fair this week. James, your co-worker should have made sure her daughter picked up the clean version of Back to Bedlam so her youthful ears would remain unsullied. Did we learn nothing from Tipper Gore? Look for that label, parents! I'm glad I don't have any flights scheduled in the immediate future. Despite my ranting about the inanity of the take-off-your-shoes rule, I honestly don't think the liquid ban is a totally off the wall idea. And I suppose that prohibiting electronic devices makes a certain amount of sense. But I've had cold sweats just contemplating the current ban on all carry-on luggage now in effect on flights between the U.K. and U.S. You can hold onto your passport and wallet, and that's it*. The idea of making it through a 10-hour transatlantic flight with no books, magazines or newspapers is just inconceivable to me. Stuck at 35,000 feet with nothing to do but watch the Tim Allen remake of "The Shaggy Dog" and read the latest issue of United Hemispheres... no thanks, I'll just stay home. *I read somewhere that feminine hygiene products are OK to bring on, although I can just imagine how much fun it must be to stand there as the security drones carefully examine your Tampax.
Sometimes, while I'm performing mindless tasks, I find myself contemplating pointless questions like, If you could pick any song in history to have written, which one would it be? The obvious answer is something like Paul McCartney's "Michelle" which has been covered a thousand times and made mega-millions of dollars, but what if there was no money involved? A few months ago, I was pondering this question while listening to my iPod and walking the dog, and Judith Owen's "The Dancing Tree" came on. "Tree" is the kind of song that could move the hardest heart; it's a gorgeous, sad, nostalgic composition about Owen's experiences as a child, trimming the family Christmas tree with her late mother. From her web site: "My mother died a couple of weeks before Christmas. She like many other depressed people couldn't cope with the added anxiety the holiday brought... many people can't. Like all of us who've lost someone around this time of year, I found Christmas a truly difficult and conflicted time for some years after." I think it's a remarkable achievement to have written a song that really touches people. When Owen performed it during a concert I attended a couple years ago, the audience was completely caught up in the moment. On the other end of the spectrum, if I could choose a single song to wipe off the face of the earth, I wouldn't have to think twice. The worst song in the history of the human race is James Blunt's "Beautiful." I've heard it parodied a couple times recently, by "Weird Al" Yankovic ("You're Pitiful") and as the office drone anthem "My Cubicle," and while I appreciate any effort to make fun of this horrendous song, the humorous versions have the unfortunate effect of making the tune stick in my head for hours afterward. "Beautiful" is mawkish, self-pitying and supremely annoying. I'm sure there are people out there who find it as moving and profound as I find "The Dancing Tree," but those people are wrong. "Beautiful" has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
It's "this year's 'Sideways,'" according to a review of "Little Miss Sunshine" on Rotten Tomatoes. Well, no, it's not—but even though few movies are as hilariously sublime as that wine country romp, "Sunshine" is still a fun summer film. If your movie features a depressed, anti-social loser, chances are I'll eat it up with a spoon, and this is no exception. "Sunshine" boasts two of them—Steve Carell as a Proust scholar whose academic rival has just snared a MacArthur genius grant and stolen away his lover, and Paul Dano as a Nietzsche-loving teenager who has taken a vow of silence (when he needs to communicate with somebody, he jots his thoughts down on a pad of paper). Greg Kinnear is not depressed, but he is perhaps the biggest loser of all, a man who doesn't realize he's a loser. Abigail Breslin is cute as a button as the character who hopes to win the kiddie beauty pageant title of Little Miss Sunshine. Bonus points for featuring a family on a road trip through country where Joe and I will soon be going on a road trip; minus points for borrowing a plot point that most audience members will remember from an old Chevy Chase movie. "Strangers With Candy" is not as polished as "Sunshine," and its jokes are hit-or-miss, but I can't help feeling the love for a film that features jokes that require a knowledge of both Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri and Samuel Johnson. Amy Sedaris's outfits alone are funnier than most movie comedies.
Continuing a tradition started way back in early July, here's my reading list for last month: Books read: Piece of My Heart by Peter Robinson Books bought: I bought Goldberg's book at my local Barnes & Noble, which, around here, anyway, seems to be the only place that carries his series. (Is it just me, or do more and more mysteries seem to be set in Hawaii lately? Methinks a lot of authors are enjoying tax-deductible "working vacations.") However, staying true to my pledge to buy a book sometime during the month at a local independent, I purchased T. Corraghessan Boyle's The Inner Circle at Stacey's. I've been meaning to read more Boyle. Stumbling On Happiness interested me because, well, I am a cranky pessimist at heart and am always curious if there's some way I can turn myself around. Gilbert's thesis (tremendously simplified) is: the best way to determine whether something will make you happy is to use other people as surrogates and find out what makes them happy. We humans aren't as "special" and "unique" as we think ("Like most people, you don't want to know you're like most people"), and our imaginations are a horrible tool in predicting our future happiness. Like Freakonomics, Stumbling is a fun, breezy read, and I learned a lot about how the human brain works, but I'm not sure I really got any practical take-aways from the book. As for Peter Robinson and Marcia Muller, they each come out with a new book every year and they're almost always fantastic. I particularly enjoyed Vanishing Point, which I devoured in less than 24 hours. Goal for August: read five books, for a change.
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