As I’ve previously mentioned, one of the best things about going back to school – even part-time – is learning new words and concepts. The latest list:
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Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.
FYI, this review includes an inordinate number of hyphens (18).
I really don’t know what to say about Burn After Reading. It’s a pretty decent movie, for what it is. But what is it? It isn’t a thriller, it isn’t a dark comedy and it isn’t an action movie, although it does contain bits and pieces of those three genres. All I can really say for sure is that it isn’t bad.
The Coen brothers’ latest offering is a convoluted D.C. tale of… convolution I guess. Osborne Cox (the ever-so-interesting-looking John Malkovich) is a down and out CIA agent who decides he can do better for himself if he pens his memoir. His wife, Katie (the ever-so-striking Tilda Swinton), is cheating on him wife with the ever-so-smug George Clooney’s Harry.
Meanwhile, back a the ranch, excuse me, local gym, Linda (the ever-so-quirky Frances McDormand) is pining for plastic surgery. She and Chad (the ever-so-adoptive Brad Pitt) hit upon a get-rich-quick scheme that involves their misinterpretation of Osborne’s lost-and-found memoir. Everyone’s story is tangled together at least two or three different ways, but it isn’t too difficult to keep it straight.
The actors are all stellar and they’re each marvelous in their individual roles, but as a whole the movie just feels off. It isn’t suspenseful enough to be a thriller, although twists and turns abound. It isn’t funny enough to be a comedy, although it certainly bears that Coen dark comedy edge. It isn’t bombastic enough to be an action movie, although several people do get shot and at least one person gets attacked with a hatchet. I would have loved to have seen the Coens to commit to genre (preferably dark comedy) and add a few more laughs. They could have great expanded the ever-so-fun J.K Simmon’s role as the clueless head of the CIA.
Burn after Reading is a sharp movie and you certainly won’t fall asleep during it, but wow it could have been ever-so-much better.
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Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.
I don’t think director Peter Berg bears any ill will towards me, but you wouldn’t know it to watch Hancock. It’s not a horrible movie (nowhere near anything ever conceived by Friedberg and Seltzer), but wow there is an awful lot wrong with it. The best thing about it is that cool Boston College stocking cap in the poster.
Hancock (Will Smith) with a boozing misanthropic Super Man who more or less fights crime, leaving a massive death toll and destruction in his collateral damage wake. After his latest antics, along comes a do-gooder PR hack (Jason Bateman) to makeover Hancock. Charlize Theron and Smith exchange curious glances, setting the new standard for heavy handed and obvious foreshadowing. There are subplots involving spaghetti and French bullies. One person’s head is literally shoved up another man’s… well you know. There are atleast three Back 2 the Future references.
Does Hancock turn over a new leaf? Why are those two exchanging those knowing glances? Was the spaghetti good? I don’t really care and this hamfisted movie doesn’t either. There’s no real story, save for a plot twist midway through that would make M. Night Shamalamadingdong go “Huh?”It takes itself way too seriously, there’s absolutely no emotion from anyone, there is no villain, the camera work and editing are horrible and the special effects (especially when Hancock flies) are smothered in cheese. Don’t get me started on the plot holes or the graffiti on the moon.
Smith just can’t pull off being a slob and as much as I love Jason Bateman, he was pretty forgettable. Charlize is a talented woman but she must have owed the director money.
It was worth the $3 I paid, but not a penny more.
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Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.
Ricky Gervais is a funny man, and it’s his talent and squinty charm and elevate Ghost Town from a ho-hum romcom to a very enjoyable 102 minutes.
Gervais is a Scrooge McDuck-like dentist named Bertram Pincus (note to self: add “Bertram” to list of favorite boy’s names) who doesn’t necessarily enjoy inflicting pain on his patients, but certainly doesn’t mind that stuffing things into their mouths keeps them from yakking about their day. After a minor complication during a routine operation (he, uh, dies for seven minutes), he is stuck between life and death and can see/communicate with those who have passed on.
Greg Kinnear plays Frank, one of the dead with unfinished business. Frank has been cheating on his wife (Tea Leoni) and wants nothing more than to apologize and make up for his faults.
The conflict that arises when Frank tries to convince Pincus to help him and his widow is predictable but enjoyable enough. The same can be said for the inevitable romance between Pincus and the former Mrs. Frank and yes, character do learn lessons and blah blah blah. Yet, in all cases, the actors’ performances carry the story way beyond what it could have been.
Tea Leoni does a fine job in her role, and Kinnear plays his part with relish. Still, it’s Gervais that clearly rises to the top. His bulky, sarcastic, cynical “British-ness” (for lack of a better word) is infinitely entertaining. I dare you not to giggle when he grits his teeth and compares the effects of a laxative to a terrorist attack (no, this isn’t a gross out story). Kristen Wiig is a winner as Bertram’s fake-tanned surgeon.
Ghost Town looks like a run-of-the-mill, post-summer piece of studio fluff, but don’t let that keep you away. Sure, it owes a lot to Ghost, and it reminds one of Over Her Dead Body and Just Like Heaven, but stands upright on its own. It’s way more than the lousy poster suggests. Don’t skip it.
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The average American sees a movie in theaters four times a year. I did that just yesterday (Tropic Thunder, Ghost Town, Hancock, Burn After Reading). I don’t know if I’m proud of that or not, but I am proud that I stayed awake through all four..
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These are two of the latest ads from Microsoft (presumably in response to the I’m a PC, I’m a Mac ads) and they’re… I uh… hmmph. I don’t know what to say. They aren’t bad, per se, but… Bill Gates adjusting his shorts then doing the Robot? Churros? Toenail clippings?
Oh, and the campaign cost $300 million.
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Holy crap, drop what you’re doing right now and go to www.morecowbell.dj/. It allows you to upload any MP3 file and customize the amount of cowball AND Christopher Walken you want. I don’t know about you, but I thought Coldplay’s Viva La Vida could use some pepping up. I went with 84% cowbell, and 67% Walken.
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(South Park can be profane, gratuitous and sacrilegious and certainly isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I do think this one episode is worth watching. While it’s not something I’d watch with my grandma, it really isn’t that bad. I promise you you won’t go to Hell. Go to www.southparkstudios.com/episodes. It’s in Season 5 and is in between the somewhat less globally aware episodes, Towelie and How to Eat With Your Butt.)
It’s Sept. 11, and that means everyone’s thoughts turn to that Tuesday morning seven years ago when, to be blunt, life got a heckuva lot more scary.
For better or worse, we’ve mostly forgotten the sting we felt while watching TV and despite the omnipresent Orange Threat level at the airport, we’ve forgotten just how tense things were. The latter, point probably isn’t a bad thing. It’s good and healthy to remember how we felt, but it’s also important to move on and continue with life. Two specific things stick out in my mind that I found personally helpful when it came to resuming my everyday life. It’s pretty telling about my generation that those two things are Saturday Night Life and South Park.
The return of SNL and Rudy Giuliani’s monologue gave us “permission to laugh and be funny again.” Seeing Lorne Michaels and Mayor Giuliani banter back and forth in what would have normally been been very un-funny bit, surrounded by New York firemen and cops, was truly one of the great TV moments in history.
Then there’s the first post-Sept. 11 episode of South Park, Osama bin Laden has Farty Pants. This show gave us permission to feel confused, indignant, angry, jingoistic and some good old fashion We’re Gonna Kick Your *** patriotism. While those emotions are obviously destructive and negative (patriotism at least deserves much finer nuance), it sure did feel good to feel and express those emotions. We got our anger out of its bottle and into the open. Once that first step was out of the way, dealing with life and reality in a modern age of terrorism could truly begin in earnest.
South Park’s 74th episode, which aired 26 days after the attacks, was nominated for an Emmy. Largely, I think, because it embodied how I and many Americans felt. (The ultra-quick turnaround of South Park’s crude animation style allowed Matt Stone and Trey Parker to write and produce such a topical episode in such a short time.)
The citizens of South Park, Colo. were not immune to the events of 9/11. Everyone is afraid of terrorists and common buildings in the show are draped with the American flag. The episode’s opening shot shows our four “heroes” at the bus stop, just like the opening of any other episode, but this time, they’re wearing gas masks and the police are checking their backpacks for anthrax and box cutters. It’s a pretty stark image and, even though I hesitate to put too much weight on a crudely animated cartoon’s shoulders, it lets us know that they (the writers, characters, Comedy Central) were also pretty freaked out. The opening lines, as the boys wait at the bus stop:
Stan: Remember when life used to be simple and cool?
Pause
Eric: Not really.
Butters enters, not wearing his gas mask.
Stan: Butters! What are you doing?
Butters: Just being a kid. Why?
Scatter throughout a hilarious Stevie Nicks/goat joke, the Tex Avery-style lampooning of bin Laden, the jab at America’s addiction to cable news, the requisite scatological humor and a romance with a camel, I think you get a pretty good picture of American’s knee-jerk reaction to Sept. 11.
Then there’s the ending:
Stan: America may have some problems, but it’s our home, our team. If you don’t want to root for your team, then you should get the hell out of the stadium. Go America! Go Broncos!
It may be a little too simplistic and our nation is certainly the cause of our fair share of problems (concerned parents might label South Park as one of those problems), but I think that in this case, we can learn a little from South Park, if only about ourselves and our nation. I realize I’m treading dangerously close to endorsing what the show lampoons, but even today I can’t help but wave the Red, White and Blue and think that if you don’t want to root for your team, get the heck out of the stadium.
Go America! Go Broncos!
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If you have not yet experienced the unbridled joy that is ChaCha, you, my friend, are living a sad and lonely existence.
ChaCha is a free, text-based “concierge” service of sorts. You call their toll-free number (800-224-2242) and ask it any question you want. Within a few seconds (usually) ChaCha confirms your question and in a minute or two replies with the answer. The only hitch is that you’re of course charged the normal amount for each text message and so if you get addicted (like I did), you can end up asking ChaCha more than 100 questions during a long road trip, thus raking in more than 200 texts in a few hours. It’s not healthy, or fiscally responsible, but man did it make the time fly.
Since ChaCha converts my voice question into text before it is answered by a person using, Google (I assume), sometimes the questions get garbled. Often ChaCha tosses in odd, semi-related information. I know it sounds retarded, but it’s kinda like the excitement you felt the first time you used a chat room back in the day.
It all started off as a bet and a few “legitimate questions.” While some friends and I were “working” in New Orleans (see previous post), we were inundated with bugs that were mating. Which was the male and which was the female? We had to know.
BK: In general, which are bigger: female bugs, or male bugs?
ChaCha: Female insects and spiders are often much bigger than their male counterparts, while the opposite is usually true in mammals such as deer and sheep. It just depends. Keep it ChaCha!
A few minutes later, as we crossed the 28-mile causeway that spans Lake Ponchatrain, we were curious:
BK: Is Lake Pontchartrain the largest lake in the world?
ChaCha: Nope. By volume, the largest lake in the world is Lake Caspian. It contains 18,900 cubic miles of H2O. ChaCha for now!
If Chris were to careen off the bridge, would the van sink hundreds of feet, trapping us in a watery grave? Let’s ask ChaCha!
BK: How deep is Lake Pontchartrain?
ChaCha: It averages only 12-14 feet deep in most areas. What else can ChaCha do for you?
Then things started to get silly. A few highlights:
BK: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
ChaCha: The average woodchuck would chuck so much wood he wouldn’t know how much wood he chucked. ChaCha!
BK: Do you want to have dinner Friday night?
ChaCha: I’m busy Friday night. Sorry. ChaCha Out.
BK: To be, or not to be?
ChaCha: To be! ChaCha rocks!
BK: What’s that smell?
ChaCha: I don’t know. Can you describe it? Keep it ChaCha!
BK: How tall is Dave _____ ? (A co-worker)
ChaCha: Dave ____ is 6 feet, 2 inches tall, or 1.88 meters tall. Keep on ChaChaing! (Good try, ChaCha. Dave is 6’5″.)
BK: What did you think of Heath Ledger’s performance in The Dark Knight?
ChaCha: Heath Ledger did very well. He played a role I didn’t think he could pull off. ChaCha!
BK: Just how awesome is Chic-Fil-A?
ChaCha: I’ve never actually eaten at one, but I have a friend in Texas who loves them. ChaCha for now!
BK: Who is your pick in November?
ChaCha: Obama, duh! Keep it ChaCha!
BK: Do you feel lucky, Punk?
ChaCha: Why yes, I do feel lucky! Thanks for doing the ChaCha!
BK: What is the square root of 3? (there isn’t one)
ChaCha: 1.3205081. Good luck in math and stay in school. ChaCha!
BK: Do bird burps smell like bugs?
ChaCha: Birds do not burp, but they do barf up their food to feed their young and it smells like whatever they ate, including bugs. Keep on ChaCha!
BK: Is crack really whack? (ChaCha misunderstood my question and thought I had a question about “track”)
ChaCha: No! Track and Field is an excellent sport. Go ChaCha!
BK: Should I shave my head so I’d be totally bald?
ChaCha: Yes! A few bald men in Hollywood have the hottest wives. Think Vin Diesel. You WILL get the ladies. Try it! Do the ChaCha!
BK: Do you know the muffin man?
ChaCha: Yep. Keep on ChaCha-ing.
BK: Heads or tails?
ChaCha: HEADS! Thanks for using ChaCha!
BK: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
ChaCha: Science has not yet answered that key question, but I do know that the Egg McMuffin came before the Chicken McNugget. ChaCha!
BK: Why did Bambi’s mother have to die?
ChaCha: Sadly, her death is what makes the story. It is a sad reality. Keep asking ChaCha!
BK: Who is cooler: Simon, or Garfunkel?
ChaCha: Garfunkel. His name sounds cooler. ChaCha Forever!
BK: Meat Loaf said he would do anything for love but “that.” What is “that?”
ChaCha: “I’ll never forget the way you feel right now, oh no, no way.” ChaCha on!
BK: Which is better: The Pathway or the Word and Way?
ChaCha: I prefer The Pathway. What else can ChaCha do for you?
BK: Is the book of Hezekiah in the Old or New Testament?
ChaCha: Hezekiah is not a book in the Bible, although he does appear in 2 Chronicles and 2 Kings (Old Testament). Do the ChaCha!
BK: Do these pants make my butt look big?
ChaCha: If they are jeans, then probably not. Back pockets make all the difference in the world in perceived butt size and jean back pockets help minimize. ChaCha Forever!
BK: If I break open a glow stick and drink the contents, will my urine glow in the dark?
ChaCha: I don’t think so. It takes 26 hours on average for liquid to pass through your system and glow sticks don’t glow that long. Plus, they are poison. ChaCha on through the night!
BK: What is the secret ingredient in your mother’s famous pecan pie, and don’t say “love”?
ChaCha: My mom doesn’t make pecan pie. Sorry. ChaCha!
BK: I’d like to buy the world a Coke. How much will this set me back?
ChaCha: As of Sept. 2008, the world’s population is estimated to be 6.721 billion. Assuming a Coke is $1, it would cost about $6.721 billion. What else can ChaCha do for you?
BK: Where’s the beef?
ChaCha: At Wendy’s! I went there for lunch and checked. Sure enough, the beef was there. Keep it ChaCha!
BK: What is the best flavor of Doritos?
ChaCha: My all time favorite was Sour Cream & Onion, but they stopped making them. Now, I just put hot sauce on the originals and it rocks! Thanks for choosing ChaCha!
BK: Who is your favorite Muppet?
ChaCha: Oscar the Grouch. I also like Cookie Monster and I’m offended they changed him to a Veggie Monster. ChaCha the night away!
BK: How much is that doggie in the window? ARF ARF!
ChaCha: Please clarify which window you’re talking about. Thnx for ChaCha-n!
BK: What does the cow say?
ChaCha: Generally, “moo.” Keep it ChaCha!
And now my personal favorites:
BK: Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
ChaCha: ChaCha is ALWAYS happy to see you! ChaCha on!
BK: What’s that one movie with the guy and the girl and the thing in that place?
ChaCha: Sound of Music. Keep it ChaCha!
BK: Just how fat is Santa Claus?
ChaCha: I just took an informal office poll: He weighs about 350 lbs, and his pant size is 50. His belly is like jelly. ChaCha on!
BK: Are they real? (This was in reference to the flowers decorated our table at a Mississippi Chic-Fil-A, although I instantly realized my question could be interpreted in a much more… interesting manner. I think ChaCha misunderstood my question, but the answer is pretty darn funny if you interpret the question in the “interesting” way.)
ChaCha: They are an imaginary tale to excite Childen for the holidays. Thanks for using ChaCha!
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