Boy Hates Girl

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #19 Harry Brown

2011-09-19T15:12:00.003-04:00

Movie: Harry Brown (2009)
Budget: $7.3 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 65%
Format: Netflix streaming

I bet you thought I was done with these reviews, huh? Yet another long-term blogging project felled half-way through by my own laziness and disinterest? Yes, well, that was (and is) definitely a possibility, but here we go...back at it for the final 14 reviews.

The "revenge" thriller is a genre best served cold, and the British-produced Harry Brown dishes it out with icy efficiency. The venerable Michael Caine plays the titular character and brings a necessary gravitas to a genre that all too often devolves into pointless and gory schadenfreude. While two very different movies, think Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino," not Kevin Bacon's awful "Death Sentence."

Caine plays a quiet, aging widower who lives alone in his low-rent flat in a devolving neighborhood somewhere in England. It's a bleak community where drugs and thugs have ruined whatever calm may have previously existed there. A stunning open scene, one filmed in "found footage" format, absolutely terrifies as we see a random act of cruel, mindless, drug-fueled violence. It's a powerfully dark, one-off scene that has no specific relationship to the plot other than to set the mood---and what a mood it sets. The neighborhood hoodlums are like real-life versions of A Clockwork Orange's droogs. When Caine's best (and only) friend is killed by the local hooligans, Harry Brown takes matters into his own hands...etc, etc, etc.

The main thing separating Harry Brown from other vigilante justice dramas is the performance of Caine. Often criticized as being an overexposed actor, most notably during his prolific run in the 1980's (hello, Jaws 4!), Caine, now 78-years-old, exudes the vulnerability that can come only with age. His sagging, reddened eyes easily convey a broken man with nothing more to live for than the hope of justice for his friend, and a possible return to serenity for his neighborhood. Now, all of that said, Harry Brown isn't exactly a remarkable film. The revenge thriller genre is, in general, simplistic by nature...and Harry Brown doesn't remake the rules. And while Caine's somber performance is indeed compelling, the first half of the movie drags on for too long as they attempt to establish his character and motives. There's also a cliched twist at the end which seems tacked on and out of place for an it-could-really-happen type movie.

Of additional interest, however, is the final act in which a riot breaks out due to overzealous police action. Using the police brutality as a proxy for working class frustration, the riots are eerily reminiscent of this summer's U.K. riots.

If you're a fan of vigilante movies, Harry Brown is a satisfying spin around the block by virtue of not eroticising its own violence and because of a strong performance from Caine. Me? Not so much a fan of the genre, but I recognize Harry Brown to be better than the average "you done me wrong, so now I do you some wrong" thrillers.

Kraig's Rating: 6/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers
Movie #3: The Iron Giant
Movie #4: The Adjustment Bureau
Movie #5: Rubber
Movie #6: The Fighter
Movie #7: The Winning Season
Movie #8: World's Greatest Dad
Movie #9: Hobo With a Shotgun
Movie #10: The Lincoln Lawyer
Movie #11: Stake Land
Movie #12: Horrible Bosses
Movie #13: Brooklyn's Finest
Movie #14: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Movie #15: Devil
Movie #16: The Vicious Kind
Movie #17: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Movie #18: 13 Assassins

"31 Movies, 31 Days": UPDATE

2011-08-30T16:30:00.003-04:00

I may have fallen well behind in my quest to review every movie I see for "31 Movies, 31 Days"---which, now that I think about it more closely, should probably be "31 Days, 31 Movies"---but I'm happy to report that I've not fallen behind in viewing the movies. In fact, through yesterday, I've knocked off 32 movies in 29 days. It's doubtful I'll add to that total over the next two days, but who cares? Insert "Mission Accomplished" banner here. I fully intend to finish out the rest of the reviews, so do keep coming back to check for those over the next week or two. I also hope to come up with a total "body count" for all the movies I've seen. It occurred to me, especially with the last several movies on my list, that I've seen a LOT of people get killed this month. Like a LOT. And I don't mean "a lot" like an asteroid strikes the earth "a lot", I mean like a hundred guys get knifed or shot or beheaded...individually...a LOT. In four of the last five movies I watched, the number is over 250 alone. I'm immune to violence now. Immune!

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #18 13 Assassins

2011-08-24T12:35:00.004-04:00

Movie: 13 Assassins (2010)
Budget: $6 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 96%
Format: Netflix streaming

With an almost perfect rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a remarkable accomplishment given the bloody and ultra-violent nature of the film, 13 Assassins has been widely hailed as the best action movie of the summer...one seen on fewer than thirty screens in the US. Yet, for all of the enthusiastic reviews showered upon this remake of a 1963 film, 13 Assassins was merely passable fare in my mind...a recommendable actioner, but one that overstays its welcome and fails to leave a lasting impression.

The story of 13 Assassins is hardly an original one: A disparate gang of thirteen warriors band together to kill an evil feudal lord...a virtual suicide mission that will have them facing off against hundreds of samurai in order to complete their task. It's not quite The Dirty Dozen, but it's close. It's also close to about a hundred other movies with the "outnumbered in battle" theme. As you may know from reading some of my past reviews, absence of originality is not a deal-breaker in my book. Taking a well-established genre and churning out a polished product can be a satisfying experience worthy of praise. For the most part, that's precisely what 13 Assassins does. For the most part.

13 Assassins is at its best when the chief adversaries flex their intellect instead of their brawn. The clever gamesmanship works well on both sides and adds to the ever-increasing tension that precedes the epic, final battle. It's that battle, one lasting about 40 minutes long, where I diverge a bit from the movie's more enthusiastic critics. While parts of the battle are indeed thrilling, I was reminded of the over-rated Hard Boiled---the film which essentially launched John Woo's not-so-great career as an "elite" action director. In that 1992 Hong Kong film, there's an extended action finale in a hospital that lasts FOREVER. The first time I saw it, it was an amazing burst of extended action. The second time I saw it, I kept looking at the clock. The third time I saw it, I grimaced and concluded it's just way too long and redundant and that the 20-year-old Kraig who loved it was clearly an idiot without a life. Too harsh? Like the finale of Hard Boiled, 13 Assassins just doesn't know when to quit. It's like a hack-and-slash video game where the enemies keep comin' and you keep killin'. It gets old quick. Next level, please.

Now, if I sound overly critical, I don't mean to. There's a lot to like about 13 Assassins...from its beautiful cinematography, to its solid acting, to its engaging, action set pieces. But any talk about 13 Assassins being an instant classic should be put to rest. It's a fine action film, but it's no comparison to films like Hero or House of Flying Daggers.

Kraig's Rating: 6/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers
Movie #3: The Iron Giant
Movie #4: The Adjustment Bureau
Movie #5: Rubber
Movie #6: The Fighter
Movie #7: The Winning Season
Movie #8: World's Greatest Dad
Movie #9: Hobo With a Shotgun
Movie #10: The Lincoln Lawyer
Movie #11: Stake Land
Movie #12: Horrible Bosses
Movie #13: Brooklyn's Finest
Movie #14: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Movie #15: Devil
Movie #16: The Vicious Kind
Movie #17: Cave of Forgotten Dreams

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #17 Cave of Forgotten Dreams

2011-08-21T12:34:00.005-04:00

Movie: Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)
Budget: not published, but very low---maybe $1 million or less
Rotten Tomatoes: 95%
Format: in theater...in 3-D

Reviewing Werner Herzog's 3-D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a tricky endeavor. Herzog has taken on an almost infallible, god-like reputation in recent years. He's eccentric, likable, prolific, a fine filmmaker, and he's keenly aware of how he's perceived in popular culture. Since 1995, Herzog has had an astonishing eight films with a 90% or higher rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics love them some Werner Herzog. I do, too, but the very successful Cave of Forgotten Dreams forces me to make a distinction between filmmaker and subject. In so doing, the Cave wins...but Herzog loses.

There's little doubt that the cave paintings discovered in France in 1994, the subject of Herzog's documentary, are of overwhelming historical and anthropological significance. Maintained in pristine condition, they date back over 30,000 years, twice as old as any previous similar discovery. That fact alone is enough to send chills up ones spine as you prepare for this rare look inside the cave. Once inside, the paintings themselves do not disappoint. They are sharply drawn murals of animals, and one image of a group of horses is especially magnificent. These are the earliest known works of art and it's a true privilege to be able to witness them in such a finely preserved condition.

The issue I have with Cave of Forgotten Dreams, however, is that there's very little else beyond the paintings. Herzog's narration is as loopy as ever and serves as more of a distraction than an amusement. Res ipsa loquitur. The thing speaks for itself, quite frankly. Additionally, while some context is given through interviews with researchers and scientists, I can't help but feel the information was woefully inadequate. And when relevant information was provided, Herzog couldn't stop himself from pondering the existential meaning behind it all. It comes off as silly time filler. As for the 3-D aspect, there is some added value in its use, but production constraints within the cave clearly limited its benefit. Some of the shots in 3-D are indeed fantastic, but at best it adds very little, and at worst it makes a dark cave all that much darker and blurrier.

I can't tell you not to see Cave of Forgotten Dreams because it's the only way you'll be able to experience such an amazing discovery. You should see it. But credit for the recommendation goes to the artists from 30,000 years ago, not the well-intentioned German artist from present day who simply pointed his camera and asks, "what does it all mean?"

Kraig's Rating: 6/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers
Movie #3: The Iron Giant
Movie #4: The Adjustment Bureau
Movie #5: Rubber
Movie #6: The Fighter
Movie #7: The Winning Season
Movie #8: World's Greatest Dad
Movie #9: Hobo With a Shotgun
Movie #10: The Lincoln Lawyer
Movie #11: Stake Land
Movie #12: Horrible Bosses
Movie #13: Brooklyn's Finest
Movie #14: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Movie #15: Devil
Movie #16: The Vicious Kind

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #16 The Vicious Kind

2011-08-21T11:45:00.001-04:00

Movie: The Vicious Kind (2009)
Budget: not published, but probably about $1-2 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 70%
Format: Netflix streaming

The Vicious Kind is the "kind" of independent movie I love to stumble upon...the kind few people have heard of and even fewer people have seen. Within the first five minutes I knew this was a movie I would add to my indie lock-box, a treasure chest housing such personal favorites as Kicking and Screaming, Barcelona, and Simple Men. That's not to say The Vicious Kind is a perfect film, or even a great film for that matter, but it's one of those movies that instantly got inside my head and reminded me why, once upon a time, I endeavored to be a professional screenwriter. In particular, the bitter dialogue from the opening scene strongly reminded me of similar moments from Hal Hartley's Simple Men...the movie I largely credit for first getting me to put pen to paper over 15 years ago.

Two of the three movies I listed above, Kicking and Screaming and Barcelona, have a particular actor in common---Christopher Eigeman. Oh, sure, it's a "different" character in name and occupation in each movie, but Eigeman is well known for playing the overly intellectual smart-ass who turns every line into a wicked, biting, almost snobby comment...and that's who he plays in both of those classics. It's his persona which made those movies classics for me. The Vicious Kind stars the man whom I believe has now taken that "persona" mantle from Eigeman: Adam Scott. Scott is probably best known for his current work on Parks and Recreation, but hopefully you've also seen him as the star of Party Down, a hilarious show which ran for two seasons on Starz. Scott is not an actor with a lot of range at this point in his career, but the range within which he works is a sweet spot for both him and me.

In The Vicious Kind, Scott plays Caleb Sinclaire, a man who's recently had his heart broken by a cheating woman...cuz bitches always be doin' that. Piling on to his agony, his little brother's new girlfriend bares a passing resemblance to his ex, a matter further complicated by their apparent attraction to one another. The result of all these complicated feelings is a lot of "vicious", misanthropic remarks by Scott that are wickedly funny. He's the most likable asshole you'll never hope to meet. Now, if this description of the plot sounds like a quirky romantic comedy to you, let me assure you it's not. There's a darkness underlying Scott's character and the movie slowly shifts away from humor to the more serious issues which plague himself and his family. Indie regular J.K. Simmons has a nice turn (is he bad in anything?) as his estranged father, and Brittany Snow plays the brother's new girlfriend. She makes it easy to understand why Caleb goes off the deep end upon meeting her.

The biggest problem with The Vicious Kind, one which I was mostly able to overlook, is accepting Scott's more dramatic moments. It's a little like watching Bill Murray the first time he tried to tackle a serious role in The Razor's Edge. It's not that Scott (or Murray) isn't capable of being serious, but when all you've ever seen is the same kind of character, one usually engaged in sarcastic comedy, there's a bit of an adjustment when you see them turn violent, or begin to weep. Scott shows enough promise that I expect he, too, will be able to evolve as an actor as Murray did later in his career. As Scott's star continues to rise (he has no fewer than five movies in various stages of production), this role will rightfully be looked back upon as a major stepping stone.

Kraig's Rating: 8/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers
Movie #3: The Iron Giant
Movie #4: The Adjustment Bureau
Movie #5: Rubber
Movie #6: The Fighter
Movie #7: The Winning Season
Movie #8: World's Greatest Dad
Movie #9: Hobo With a Shotgun
Movie #10: The Lincoln Lawyer
Movie #11: Stake Land
Movie #12: Horrible Bosses
Movie #13: Brooklyn's Finest
Movie #14: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Movie #15: Devil

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #15 Devil

2011-08-20T14:00:00.003-04:00

Movie: Devil (2010)
Budget: $10 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 52%
Format: Blu-Ray DVD

Bashing the work of M. Night Shyamalan has become something of a blood sport over the last few years as moviegoers and critics attempt to outdo each other with their hateful criticisms. Some of it is deserved, I'm sure, but much of it is pure hyperbole. I've not seen his two most recent "disasters," The Happening and The Last Airbender, and those are supposedly his worst yet, but I actually enjoyed very much the critically reviled Lady in the Water and also The Village. And so we now get Devil, a movie which Shyamalan did not direct, but instead produced and got a story credit for. It has his stamp all over it, so it's fair to add it, I think, to Shyamalan's oeuvre. So does it represent a return to excellence for a once-promising director, or is it more fodder for his haters? Based on the mediocre RT score above you'd think the latter...but you'd be wrong. Trapped-in-an-elevator-dead wrong.

Playing out like an extended episode of The Outer Limits, Devil tells the tale of five strangers trapped in an elevator...one of which may or may not be the Devil. But rather than behave like a silly, gore-filled horror film, Devil is more like Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians. It's more mystery than horror, and this stylistic choice elevates a fairly basic premise. The glue to this movie is a very strong performance by Chris Messina, a supporting actor most often seen stealing scenes in independent movies, as he did in Away We Go. It's nice to see Messina get a leading role for a change, this time as a smart detective with a tragic past. If there's one way to get me to check out of a movie, it's having cops behave in stupid and unbelievable ways. That's not the case here. Everything Messina's character does seems utterly plausible, even when faced with an utterly implausible situation.

The same can not be said, unfortunately, of the trapped passengers. Those characters are a little more one-dimensional and forced, but not to a distracting degree, fortunately. There's a legitimate sense of claustrophobic paranoia in Devil and, at just 80 minutes long, it's a well-paced, brisk thriller that doesn't have enough time to get tired or stale. As with all Shyamalan films, there's a twist at the end, but it's a twist that works well within the themes of the movie and it's not as jaw-droppingly stupid as some of his others. The ending is, I can't believe I'm writing this, actually sort of moving.

Devil is not as scary as you might hope for or expect, but for me that was part of its appeal. I appreciated the mystery and storytelling, and it's simply better than a premise like this has any business being. Devil is not just surprisingly good---it's very good.

Kraig's Rating: 8/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers
Movie #3: The Iron Giant
Movie #4: The Adjustment Bureau
Movie #5: Rubber
Movie #6: The Fighter
Movie #7: The Winning Season
Movie #8: World's Greatest Dad
Movie #9: Hobo With a Shotgun
Movie #10: The Lincoln Lawyer
Movie #11: Stake Land
Movie #12: Horrible Bosses
Movie #13: Brooklyn's Finest
Movie #14: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #14 Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2011-08-20T12:52:00.004-04:00

Movie: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
Budget: $93 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 82%
Format: in theater

Let's get something out of the way very quickly: if James Franco is an Academy Award-nominated actor, so, too, should Andy Serkis be. Serkis, best known for his work as the CGI-created Gollum in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, a role many thought he should have been nominated for, is once again outstanding as an actor who isn't really on screen...and yet, is an actor who dominates the film with his presence. It's doubtful the Academy will recognize Serkis's motion-captured performance as Caesar, the leader of the ape uprising, but even skeptics of the acting chops required for such a character would come away from Rise of the Planet of the Apes suitably impressed. His performance is all the more worthy when viewed next to those of his living flesh counterparts---most of which might as well have been performed by robots. If there's one reason to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Serkis is it.

Luckily, there's more than just Serkis to recommend. As a reboot to a franchise I've always loved, Apes is a fairly intelligent, sensitive start to what I hope and expect will be many more additions to the canon. Interestingly, the best parts of Apes aren't the action set pieces so prominently featured in the trailer. Most of the movie is a slow buildup that forces us to identify with our eventual overlords (I hope that's not a spoiler---if so, that is a very big rock you're under, my friend). This part of the movie works VERY well...at first, because, let's face it, baby chimps are super cute, but later because Serkis is so damn believable as an ape of increasing intelligence and self awareness. I was most reminded of the underrated 1987 Matthew Broderick movie Project X, another film involving likable chimps and unlikable human taskmasters. Every scene with Serkis, and he's in about 70% of them, is utterly compelling. For that matter, so, too, are his ape brethren. It's fascinating (and maybe a bit sad, too) that ALL of the ape characters are more believable than the human characters.

Those human characters are what really keeps Apes from being a great movie. There's not one human character who is thoughtfully written or made to be more than just a cliched archetype. There's the greedy corporate exec, there's the two-faced asshole bastard who runs an ape preserve, there's the dick who abuses the apes, there's the short-tempered neighbor, and on and on it goes with the humans. I, for one, welcome our new Ape overlords. It'll be quite an improvement.

As for the action, it's not bad. It runs a little long, but it's well done and gives you that satisfying big budget summer spectacle you might be craving. For my part, though, I found the final act a little boring. Because of Serkis, I was far more interested in what happens in the next movie, when the humans and apes will interact in the way we're most familiar with from the previous movies. I hope Serkis gets to reprise his role as Caesar. Maybe then he'll get the full recognition he deserves.

Kraig's Rating: 7/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers
Movie #3: The Iron Giant
Movie #4: The Adjustment Bureau
Movie #5: Rubber
Movie #6: The Fighter
Movie #7: The Winning Season
Movie #8: World's Greatest Dad
Movie #9: Hobo With a Shotgun
Movie #10: The Lincoln Lawyer
Movie #11: Stake Land
Movie #12: Horrible Bosses
Movie #13: Brooklyn's Finest

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #13 Brooklyn's Finest

2011-08-19T13:23:00.003-04:00

Movie: Brooklyn's Finest (2009)
Budget: $25 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 42%
Format: Netflix streaming

It's not exactly The Wire (though it shares several of its actors), but Brooklyn's Finest is a dark, gritty, ensemble police drama that successfully interweaves several stories around a drug-dealing housing project in Brooklyn. Whereas The Wire had the luxury of being slow and methodical, something which added layer upon layer to the characters and story, Brooklyn's Finest has but two hours to make it all work...and, for the most part, succeeds.

Skillfully directed by Training Day's Antoine Fuqua, Brooklyn's Finest can almost be viewed as an homage to the work of the recently deceased Sidney Lumet. There's a splash of Q&A here, a pinch of Prince of the City there, and a smattering of Serpico just for added flavor. It's a world where every character is deeply flawed---each afflicted with some tragic trait which weighs heavily on both them and the audience. Good people do bad things, and bad people do good things. Nobody is all good, and nobody is all bad. It's my favorite sort of theme, and Brooklyn's Finest has it in spades.

Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke and Don Cheadle all play police officers in different jobs and at different stages of their lives. Gere is a burned out, soon-to-retire beat cop who checked out a long time ago. Hawke plays a detective on the drug enforcement side and struggles to make ends meet with countless kids depending on him at home. No, really, I stopped counting his kids because two new kids would pop up in every scene! Cheadle completes this trio as an undercover cop who's been under too long and starts to identify a little too closely with his targets. While we've seen characters in these unoriginal situations before, the combination of all three, especially with the added intensity provided by Fuqua, and also in concert with a perfectly heavy-handed score (think Before the Devil Knows You're Dead by Lumet), makes it all seem oddly fresh.

Originality is not Brooklyn's Finest strongest quality. It's riddled with cliches and you can almost guess what's going to happen from scene one, but all of that matters very little when you have strong performances and a well-told story. Wesley Snipes and Ellen Barkin have great supporting roles, and Vincent D'Onofrio is outstanding in a bit part. If you like Lumet-style police dramas, Brooklyn's Finest is an underrated gem. With a 42% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I think the critics missed the boat on this one.

Kraig's Rating: 7/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers
Movie #3: The Iron Giant
Movie #4: The Adjustment Bureau
Movie #5: Rubber
Movie #6: The Fighter
Movie #7: The Winning Season
Movie #8: World's Greatest Dad
Movie #9: Hobo With a Shotgun
Movie #10: The Lincoln Lawyer
Movie #11: Stake Land
Movie #12: Horrible Bosses

Happy 500?

2011-08-19T12:46:00.003-04:00

Evidently that last post was the 500th since I started BoyHatesGirl.com almost three years ago. It somehow seems appropriate that that milestone blog post was yet another entry in which I lament how much I have left to write. I've spent a great deal of time here writing about things I plan on writing. Here's hoping for 500 more postings that involve more writing than talking about writing. Happy 500th blog entry, BHG!

"31 Movies, 31 Days": UPDATE

2011-08-17T14:39:00.002-04:00

It's taken awhile, but I've finally hit a bit of a wall in my "31 Movies, 31 Days" cinematic gorge-fest. Turns out that watching a LOT of movies is a good way to dull ones senses. Who knew? Over the last two days I've failed to add to my list of movies watched, and tonight figures to make it three days in a row. Still, thanks to an early burst which had me watching 19 films in the first 14 days, I'm still slightly ahead of pace with these movies already watched and awaiting review:

#13) Brooklyn's Finest
#14) Rise of the Planet of the Apes
#15) Devil
#16) The Vicious Kind
#17) Cave of Forgotten Dreams
#18) 13 Assassins
#19) Harry Brown

This weekend should polish off another 5 or 6.

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #12 Horrible Bosses

2011-08-16T13:41:00.003-04:00

Movie: Horrible Bosses (2011)
Budget: $35 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 69%
Format: in theater

I fucking hate Jason Sudeikis. The dude just isn't funny. Sorry, ladies, but he's starting to remind me a lot of Dane Cook--which is a comparison no man other than Dane Cook would ever want. Yeah, I guess Sudeikis is kind of handsome in a tall, midwestern blah kind of way, but he's so god damn annoying and I'm struggling to remember ever liking him in anything at all. 30 Rock? Maybe at first, but even that character seemed to become full of himself and less amusing with each successive appearance. While Sudeikis doesn't have to carry the entire comedy load in Horrible Bosses, his mere presence taints even further an already so-so movie.

Horrible Bosses, as you've probably seen from the amusing previews, is about three male friends (Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Sudeikis) who decide to kill each others boss in classic Throw Momma from the Train fashion. It's a premise rife with comedic potential, but the lackluster script mostly settles for overplayed, obvious jokes that a talented cast (except for Sudeikis---god, I hate him) just can't do much with. Are jokes about the hard-to-pronounce name of the Indian voice on a car's Guidestar system still funny? Were they ever? How about a scene dedicated to a golden showers joke? If so, Horrible Bosses is for you!

Jason Bateman does his usual schtick and does it well, and a small role by Jamie Foxx as murder consultant Mother Fucker Jones gets a lot of mileage, but the funniest moments are in the trailer and there are few other surprises to be had. Jennifer Aniston steals the show as one of the horrible bosses, a dentist who sexually harasses Charlie Day, but these few bright spots just can't change the fact that Horrible Bosses isn't as funny or clever as it thinks it is. It's worth noting, too, that the three friends we're supposed to like are, in some ways, almost as repellent as the bosses they are trying to kill. Forgetting for the moment that they decide to engage in murder, Bateman is a wimpy pushover, Sudeikis an arrogant pussy hound, and Day a moronic dental assistant whose sole aspiration in life was to become a husband. Day's character is also a registered sex offender, though that joke actually plays a bit. Who, again, are we supposed to like?

Horrible Bosses isn't horrible, but when you stack it up against, say, Bridesmaids, the difference is staggering. Yes, Bosses aims a bit lower than Bridesmaids...but not that much lower. It's a sometimes amusing comedy with a cast trying its damnedest, but it's utterly forgettable and a major disappointment given what could have been.

Kraig's Rating: 5/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers
Movie #3: The Iron Giant
Movie #4: The Adjustment Bureau
Movie #5: Rubber
Movie #6: The Fighter
Movie #7: The Winning Season
Movie #8: World's Greatest Dad
Movie #9: Hobo With a Shotgun
Movie #10: The Lincoln Lawyer
Movie #11: Stake Land

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #11 Stake Land

2011-08-16T11:56:00.002-04:00

Movie: Stake Land (2011)
Budget: $625,000
Rotten Tomatoes: 76%
Format: Downloaded from Playstation Network

With so many vampire and zombie movies making the rounds these days, it's getting harder and harder for filmmakers to keep the genre fresh and interesting...if they even try at all. Stake Land, a low-budget indie entry to the library, solves this problem by returning to the basics: characters, atmosphere, suspense. You can tell the same story over and over so long as you keep your focus on these essential film-making elements, and director/co-writer Jim Mickle never flinches. Stake Land is a taut, moody, scary, character-driven vampire movie which serves its genre well.

Whether intentional or not, Stake Land seems to channel the style and spirit of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Road." Two men, one an older mentor and protector to the other, take off through a post-apocalyptic American landscape in search of, they hope, a fabled safe haven. Along the way they have to dodge vampires and cultists while also encountering other people whose presence may be more burdensome than helpful. If you've read The Road, you know that's EXACTLY the same tale...except the vampires are cannibals. Like The Road, Stake Land is a bleak journey. There seems little doubt that the world's end is nigh, a reality that our characters become ever more aware of as their journey expands.

Featuring mostly no-name actors, Stake Land excels, in part, because we don't really know these faces. The actors are good, but it's definitely easier to walk in their shoes without that "oh, hey, it's Tom Cruise" obstacle viewers often face. The older, wiser, more grizzled character on the journey, known only as "Mister," is played well by Nick Damici (who also co-wrote the script). It's refreshing to see an average-looking guy, a no-name actor in his 40's (pictured above), get to carry the water for an action film. It's one reason why I love independent film. This film stands a decent chance at being remade by a Hollywood studio one day and, while it would probably be entertaining, it would be an entirely different kind of movie with Viggo Mortensen in the lead.

Stake Land doesn't exactly reinvent the wheel, but it does manage to take a nearly bald tire and give it some much-needed tread. Um, feel free to take this movie for a spin around the block. Uh, it's the Prius of vampire/zombie movies...inexpensive, efficient, quiet, effective.

Kraig's Rating: 7/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers
Movie #3: The Iron Giant
Movie #4: The Adjustment Bureau
Movie #5: Rubber
Movie #6: The Fighter
Movie #7: The Winning Season
Movie #8: World's Greatest Dad
Movie #9: Hobo With a Shotgun
Movie #10: The Lincoln Lawyer

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #10 The Lincoln Lawyer

2011-08-14T18:25:00.003-04:00

Movie: The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)
Budget: $40 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 83%
Format: Blu-Ray DVD

The Lincoln Lawyer, starring Matthew McConaughey in the titular role as a criminal defense attorney who offices out of his car, is very much a throwback to the lawyer/investigation thrillers that were so prevalent in the late 80s and early 90s. Whether that's a good thing or not is debatable. Some of those movies, like True Believer starring James Woods, were thoroughly entertaining, even with their over-the-top courtroom theatrics. But most of them, even ones that were well reviewed at the time--like The Jagged Edge, for one---were just popcorn-munching whodunits designed to titillate and to scare. There's nothing wrong that, of course, but I prefer my lawyer films to be a bit more substantial when it comes to the actual lawyering. The Lincoln Lawyer begins with the promise of being one such film, but a ridiculous third act sinks it into the also-ran category.

McConaughey is likable and cool, his character being the archetype for such films: rebellious, slick, willing to bend the rules, unflappable. Everybody likes a cool lawyer, right? He's aided by his cop-turned-hippy investigator, played nicely by W.H. Macy. Together, McConaughey and Macy are hired to defend a rich client against sexual assault charges. Ryan Phillipe does a good job playing the spoiled and entitled rich kid, but we've seen this character a dozen times before. The twists and turns are neither surprising nor believable, but they are at least somewhat fun to arrive at. The real problem with The Lincoln Lawyer is just how jarringly stupid it gets about halfway through the movie. Characters do things that make no sense, and the resolution is akin to something you'd expect to see in a made for TV movie.

Based on a series of books by Michael Connelly, I'd not be opposed to seeing McConaughey reprise this role---so long as the story is stronger next time. Roger Ebert liked The Lincoln Lawyer a bit better than I did (3 out of 4 stars), but this quote from his review essentially captures my thoughts: "The plotting seems like half-realized stabs in various directions made familiar by other crime stories. But for what it is, The Lincoln Lawyer is workmanlike, engagingly acted and entertaining." Yeah, what he said. Just less so.

Kraig's Rating: 6/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers
Movie #3: The Iron Giant
Movie #4: The Adjustment Bureau
Movie #5: Rubber
Movie #6: The Fighter
Movie #7: The Winning Season
Movie #8: World's Greatest Dad
Movie #9: Hobo With a Shotgun

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #9 Hobo With a Shotgun

2011-08-14T15:24:00.005-04:00

Movie: Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)
Budget: $3 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 67%
Format: Netflix Streaming

Arguably the greatest movie title ever, Hobo With a Shotgun delivers exactly what its name promises---a hobo, played with compelling intensity by Rutger Hauer, blowing people away with a shotgun. Between this film and Rubber, I've now reached my monthly allowance on heads being, literally, blown up. I think those two movies combined have at least a dozen heads exploding like rotten tomatoes. But awesome title and exploding heads aside, does Hobo With a Shotgun live up to its Grindhouse spin-off expectations? Yes...and no.

"Hobo" is the second feature film to materialize from the gag trailers for Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse double feature. The first spin-off, Machete, was a disappointing effort helmed by the so-overrated Rodriguez. In his desire to pay tribute to classic grindhouse cinema, Rodriguez inadvertently made a mockery of the genre by being too self-aware and encouraging intentionally bad acting. "Hobo," on the other hand, takes itself just a bit more seriously and, thus, more accurately captures the low-budget, gritty, exploitative aesthetic that a movie like this requires. Hauer plays his Hobo role absolutely straight, and the movie is a lot better off for it. I've always thought Hauer was an under-appreciated actor, a reality not helped by the many, many bad movies he's found himself in. Call me crazy, but I think Hauer still has an Oscar-worthy performance in him. He'll just need a director like Tarantino to give him a chance and get his career revived with some good material.

In Hobo With a Shotgun, not that plot matters, Hauer finds himself in the middle of a god forsaken shithole of a town, one ruled with a brutal fist by "The Drake" and his two Tom Cruise-in-Risky-Business lookalike sons. The villainous performances are gleefully over the top, sometimes to good effect, sometimes to annoyance. There's also a weird supernatural element called "The Plague," a mysterious, demonic bounty hunting duo whose bizarre presence nobody seems to question. It's a bleak movie, and the shitty Canadian town where they shot is up to the challenge as looking like a place I would never, ever want to visit. Anyway, bad things provoke the Hobo to buy a shotgun and take justice into his own hands. It's weird, it's violent, it's mildly entertaining.

Your enjoyment of Hobo With a Shotgun will depend largely (entirely?) on your opinion of grindhouse-style cinema. Let's be clear---Hobo With a Shotgun is not, traditionally speaking, a good movie. It's really quite stupid and the supporting performances are exceptionally amateurish. I'm not a huge fan of the genre, so I had a somewhat tepid response to Hobo. Hauer's performance is admirable, and there are some fun, clever parts in the middle---especially when The Plague is introduced---but otherwise the film just sort of drags, mildly offends, and is unpleasant to look at. I mean, really, it's a bleak fucking town.

Kraig's Rating: 4/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers
Movie #3: The Iron Giant
Movie #4: The Adjustment Bureau
Movie #5: Rubber
Movie #6: The Fighter
Movie #7: The Winning Season
Movie #8: World's Greatest Dad

"31 Movies, 31 Days": UPDATE

2011-08-12T18:56:00.003-04:00

I probably won't be able to post any more reviews this weekend, but beginning next week you can look forward to more shallow reviews of the following movies:

#9) Hobo With a Shotgun
#10) The Lincoln Lawyer
#11) Stake Land
#12) Horrible Bosses
#13) Brooklyn's Finest
#14) Rise of the Planet of the Apes
#15) Devil

What I'd really like to see is Hobo With a Shotgun vs. Planet of the Apes. THAT is a movie I'd watch.

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #8 World's Greatest Dad

2011-08-12T18:00:00.003-04:00

Movie: World's Greatest Dad (2009)
Budget: not published, but probably about $6-9 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
Format: Netflix Streaming

World's Greatest Dad easily wins the award for World's Worst Ad Campaign. If you looked at the poster above, what would be your first impression? Mine, based on Robin Williams's awful track record of starring in miserable family-oriented films, would be that this was...a miserable family-oriented film. The font, the bathrobe, the generic title---all of these things suggest a movie we don't ever, EVER want to see. The only reason I even gave this movie a chance was because it somehow scored an 88% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Reviews lavished high praise on World's Greatest Dad calling it dark, funny and deep. Really? A Robin Williams movie called World's Greatest Dad is dark? Why yes...yes it is. Very dark.

Dark comedies, especially unexpected ones, can often be a bit hard for me to process. I enjoy a good dark comedy, but sometimes it takes a second viewing before I begin to appreciate them and fully adjust to their comedic tone. It took me a good 25 minutes before I "got it," whatever "it" is. I'm still not sure, really. For this reason I expect I would enjoy World's Greatest Dad somewhat more on a repeat viewing than I did on this first go round. But then again, I truly detest Robin Williams...so perhaps not. If anyone else had played the titular character, World's Greatest Dad could have been something special. Instead, we're left with an uneven film that only hints at its own potential.

Williams plays a high school teacher with a fairly moronic and unkind teenage boy with raging hormones. Williams is also a failed writer and going through somewhat of a mid-life crisis when an accident leads to the death of his son. To the film's credit, the death of his son is not played for laughs. It's a serious moment which spins the movie into unexpected, dark territory. I won't give too much of the plot away, but Williams uses the death of his son to shamelessly advance his own writing career, as well as to seduce his on-again off-again girlfriend into bed. Did I mention it's a comedy? Written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait (yes, THAT Bobcat Goldthwait), World's Greatest Dad is a bold and ambitious comedy...just one anchored by someone not funny, nuanced or complex enough to make it all work. Sam Rockwell might've won an Oscar in this role.

I can't exactly recommend World's Greatest Dad, but it definitely deserves a nod for being different and for daring to mine humor from places most movies won't touch. It also features Bruce Hornsby starring as Bruce Hornsby...and that's kind of awesome.

Kraig's Rating: 5/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers
Movie #3: The Iron Giant
Movie #4: The Adjustment Bureau
Movie #5: Rubber
Movie #6: The Fighter
Movie #7: The Winning Season

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #7 The Winning Season

2011-08-11T18:19:00.003-04:00

Movie: The Winning Season (2009)
Budget: not published, but probably about $5-8 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 55%
Format: Netflix Streaming

Any movie starring Sam Rockwell is a movie I'm totally down with seeing, even if it is one about women's basketball. High school women's basketball, no less. And, true to form, Rockwell's performance is indeed the best reason to check out the otherwise pedestrian The Winning Season. Channeling a bit of Walter Matthau's Coach Buttermaker (The Bad News Bears), Rockwell plays an alcoholic loser who gets a chance to coach high school basketball. He's knows a good deal about the sport and has a lot to teach...but maybe, just maybe the girls can teach him a thing or two, too. Sorry---was writing cliched promo copy in my sleep there. But you get the idea. You know exactly what this movie is about.

While The Winning Season mostly follows a tried and true traditional sports formula, it does strive to be a bit more "indie" by making Rockwell's character sadder, darker, and more pathetic than you might expect. Although I admire this attempt to break the mold, the result is an uneven mash-up combining a cliche-ridden, feel-good sports movie aimed at kids with...Leaving Las Vegas. I know---weird, right? The movie suffers from this well-intentioned identity crisis, but each identity is at least somewhat interesting in its own right. I mean, I'll be damned if I didn't want those girls to win the big game!

If you like Sam Rockwell, The Winning Season is worth a look...so long as you go in with modest expectations. If you like high school women's basketball, The Winning Season is also worth a look. Also, you're a loser.

Kraig's Rating: 6/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers
Movie #3: The Iron Giant
Movie #4: The Adjustment Bureau
Movie #5: Rubber
Movie #6: The Fighter

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #6 The Fighter

2011-08-11T16:51:00.002-04:00

Movie: The Fighter (2010)
Budget: $25 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 91%
Format: Netflix Streaming

Now that I've finally gotten around to seeing The Fighter, I need just one more movie to complete my "have seen" set of the ten 2010 Best Picture nominees. I'll get to you soon, True Grit...just you wait. Given the fact that I'm a huge fan of director David O. Russell, as well as a huge fan of the sweet science (aka pugilism, aka boxing), it's somewhat surprising I waited this long to see The Fighter. As you may remember, though, I'm not a fan of Christian Bale, and I also find Mark Wahlberg to be a dull, one-note actor. Really, Wahlberg is just a prettier, softer-spoken version of Michael Rappaport. Wahlberg plays his one note well enough in The Fighter, but it's Christian Bale's Oscar-winning performance that finally earns him my respect.

Bale famously lost a LOT of weight for his role in the dark and disturbing The Machinist, and his body undergoes a similar transformation here. Playing a meth addict with a personality as big as his drug problem, Bale is simultaneously charming, hilarious, pathetic and depressingly real. One of the more impressive aspects of The Fighter is just how true to life it is. While there is some dramatization in the "based on a true story" script, the characters and events---crazy though they may be---are stunningly accurate. Bale isn't over the top---it's his real life counterpart that was over the top. The same is true of Melissa Leo's Oscar-winning performance as the mother of the two half-brother fighters. Leo hams it up real good, but folks, that's really how Alice Ward was in real life.

Another true-to-life aspect of The Fighter are the fights themselves. I remembered these matches from having seen them on television, and they were exactly as I remembered them. The resemblance was so uncanny, in fact, that I went back and checked them out on You Tube. Punch for punch, the fights are identical. They even used the actual commentary from ringside in the movie. Unlike in other boxing movies, there's no need here to create false drama in the ring. The truth was far more interesting than any fiction they could have created. This authenticity gives The Fighter a little "extra punch." Yep, I went there.

While the final act does become a bit too much like a traditional sports movie (hello, training montage), The Fighter is an exceptional sports movie with superb performances and a real-life story that is both moving and, surprisingly, funny. The Fighter is a "knockout." Yep, I went there, too.

Kraig's Rating: 8/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers
Movie #3: The Iron Giant
Movie #4: The Adjustment Bureau
Movie #5: Rubber

Blogging the Stock Market: Part 4

2011-08-11T16:42:00.000-04:00

Like waaaaaay up.

Yep.

Blogging the Stock Market: Part 3

2011-08-11T11:14:00.001-04:00

It's...up.

Blogging the Stock Market: Part 2

2011-08-10T16:10:00.001-04:00

Like waaaaay down.

Blogging the Stock Market

2011-08-10T10:57:00.000-04:00

It's down.

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #5 Rubber

2011-08-09T17:26:00.002-04:00

Movie: Rubber (2010)
Budget: $0.5 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 68%
Format: Netflix Streaming

Because of its absurdly funny gimmick, Rubber, a movie about a tire that rolls around killing people with its MIND, created a modest amount of buzz a few months back when the trailer debuted. What you can't quite tell from the trailer is just how absurdist Rubber really is. In addition to Robert---sorry, that's the name of the killer tire---Rubber also explores the movie viewing experience by having an audience in the movie. There's an opening monologue to the "audience" which basically warns the audience that it won't make one bit of sense. One review describes it as "Roger Corman by way of Samuel Beckett," and I'd say that's about right. The result of this bizarre mash-up is a unique horror-comedy that's as surprising as it is entertaining.

Although it had almost no budget, Rubber looks simply fantastic. French director Quentin Dupieux was his own cinematographer on Rubber and the movie is an absolute pleasure to look at. He also wrote the screenplay, did his own editing, and created the techno-based score. Dupieux seemingly did everything on the movie except act in it, and given how strong the performances are, he seems to have made the right choice not to. It's a cast of no-names, has-beens and never-will-be's, but they're all up to the task here. The worst actress is Roxane Mesquida, an attractive Frenchie who Robert (again, that's the tire) seems mildly obsessed with. But even Mesquida's poor acting seems to fit the overall aesthetic of Rubber.

Rubber is not for everyone, but it's a clever commentary on traditional cinematic expectations. It's also damn funny and a lot smarter than you'd ever expect.

Kraig's Rating: 7/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers
Movie #3: The Iron Giant
Movie #4: The Adjustment Bureau

"31 Movies, 31 Days": UPDATE

2011-08-09T15:44:00.003-04:00

I'm falling behind on the posting of my movie reviews, but not on the actual watching of the movies. Through 8 days I've seen 11 movies, well ahead of schedule. Upcoming reviews to look for include...

#5) Rubber
#6) The Fighter
#7) The Winning Season
#8) World's Greatest Dad
#9) Hobo With a Shotgun
#10) The Lincoln Lawyer
#11) Stake Land

And tonight I will attempt to sneak into a double-feature of Horrible Bosses followed by Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

If only I took the rest of my life as seriously as I take this...

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #4 The Adjustment Bureau

2011-08-07T21:29:00.003-04:00

Movie: The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
Budget: $50 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 72%
Format: Blu-Ray DVD

The preview for The Adjustment Bureau did little to entice me when it first debuted, and positive reviews also failed to pique my interest. Quite frankly, it looked like a sappy romance about fated love, one jazzed up by a bunch of men in hats chasing Matt Damon around and saying his love was forbidden. In other words, it looked like a chick flick disguised as sci-fi. This pre-judgment proved to be, in fact, true. What I failed to account for, however, likely because of deep denial, is that I really enjoy a good chick flick...and this is, most definitely, a good chick flick.

Filmed entirely on location in New York City, half the fun of the movie is recognizing the many, many places they shot. From the New Leaf Cafe up near the Cloisters, to MoMA, to Yankee Stadium, to the Hell's Kitchen dive bar Rudy's, this film has more site-specific locations than I've ever seen in a movie. One clever gimmick which takes advantage of these many locations is the use of special doors which, when opened, transport the door-opener to an entirely different part of the city...sort of like the MTA on steroids.

For a movie like this to succeed, there has to be genuine chemistry between its romantic leads...and Matt Damon and Emily Blunt have it in spades. I'm not a "love at first sight" kind of guy, but the scene in which our two leads meet is witty, engaging and bubbling over with romantic tension. From that point on we very much care what happens to our would-be lovers, something which makes the obstacles they soon face all the more compelling. Damon is sensational as a young politician, and Blunt is believable as a free-spirited modern dancer who acts as somewhat of a muse for Damon's ambitions. Blunt, who had no dance experience prior to winning the role, does all her own dancing and does it very, very well.

From a sci-fi perspective, The Adjustment Bureau, based (yet again) on a story by Philip K. Dick, is somewhat meh. I believe in the separation of church and state, but I also believe in the separation of church and science...fiction. There is a religious and spiritual angle to the movie which I will not fully explain here, but suffice it to say that it's very, very silly. The mechanics of what the Adjustment Bureau team members do is very interesting, but the reasons behind them? Oy. It's best not to dwell on the overarching idea behind the movie and instead focus on the romance and the action...both of which are fun. John Slattery, looking and sounding a lot like Roger Sterling from Mad Men, and the always imposing Terrance Stamp, chew the scenery in their supporting roles.

Briskly paced and featuring great performances, The Adjustment Bureau is a romantic sci-fi film worth checking out.

Kraig's Rating: 7/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers
Movie #3: The Iron Giant

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #3 The Iron Giant

2011-08-07T16:31:00.004-04:00

Movie: The Iron Giant (1999)
Budget: $48 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 97%
Format: Netflix streaming

From an 11% movie to a 97% one, the early selections for "31 Movies, 31 Days" are certainly living at the extremes. The Iron Giant is a pre-Pixar animated film which, despite the amazing reviews, I just never got around to seeing. I rarely go see animated movies in the theater, and my enthusiasm for watching them at home is something akin to the enthusiasm I have for a well-reviewed foreign film...which is to say I know I'll like it, but hitting "play" is the hardest part. Twelve years after its release, I finally got around to seeing The Iron Giant...and I was not disappointed.

The first thing you'll notice about The Iron Giant is the old-school animation. We've all become spoiled by the clean, clear, crisp digital animation that Pixar and Disney do so well---so much so that the initial impression of the animation for Iron Giant is kind of negative. It's just not as vivid or smooth as we're expecting. The lines are uneven and wobbly. Eventually, our eyes adjust to the classic, hand-drawn approach, helped along by the decision to use CGI on the robot only---a nice juxtaposition. Within ten minutes you stop complaining about it not being Pixar-quality and start appreciating the genuine artistry of the animation.

The story, based on a 1968 children's book by British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes, tells the tale of a huge robot and its friendship with a young boy. The book grew out of a story told by Hughes to comfort his and Slyvia Plath’s two children following her suicide. The tale is cleverly re-purposed here to take advantage of 1957 Cold War paranoia. Now, if the story feels like a Pixar film, that's because it was directed by Brad Bird--who also gets a story credit. Bird, of course, is the genius writer/director behind The Incredibles and Ratatouille, and is also an adviser on pretty much every other Pixar film. While the screenplay doesn't have as many sly, winking-to-the-adult jokes as you would expect in a Pixar film, its emotional core is just as strong...or stronger. I defy you not to shed a tear or two.

Overall, The Iron Giant didn't appeal to me quite as much as, say, Toy Story 3 or Ratatouille, but the narrative is strong and it's really just a perfect family film. It's also the perfect vehicle for Vin Diesel's over-sized acting talents. Diesel plays the Giant (duh) and only has to grunt a few words here and there. He really nails the robot-acting aesthetic! Oddly, the three main voice actors in The Iron Giant are known more for their on-camera attractiveness than their sound booth acting talents...but Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick Jr., and Diesel all do great work here without ever having to take their clothes off.

Finally, the movie seems to have solved one minor mystery for me. If you're familiar with the work of writer/producer/director J.J. Abrams (Lost, Super 8), you've probably seen his "Bad Robot" production company animation at the end of every episode or movie. While I wasn't able to verify online the origins of the "Bad Robot" name, it seems clear to me now that it derives from this movie. In one scene, the little boy chides The Iron Giant and calls him a "bad robot." That alone might be enough to make the connection, but J.J.'s next project is producing Mission Impossible 4 (he directed MI3). And who is directing the newest Mission Impossible installment? Brad Bird. Dun dun dun!

Kraig's Rating: 8/10

Movie #1: Skyline
Movie #2: Killers

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #2 Killers

2011-08-06T22:33:00.002-04:00

Movie: Killers (2010)
Budget: $75 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 11%
Format: Netflix streaming

It wasn't easy to find a film with a lower RT percentage than Skyline, but somehow I did it! And yet, not unlike Skyline, Killers simply isn't as horrible as it's obscenely low rating would suggest. I will not mount as vigorous a defense of Killers as I did Skyline, but 11% falsely implies it's a movie that fails on all levels and is downright painful to watch. That's just not the case. Killers has a few clever lines and a few scenes which work well...just not enough to earn it a recommendation...but still more than enough to say it's not a disaster.

Ashton Kutcher, playing a retired CIA assassin, and Katherine Heigl, as his unsuspecting, tightly wound wife, share only a modicum of chemistry...somewhat of a problem in a romantic comedy I'd say, no? Their interplay is far more entertaining in the second half than the first, but by that point it's pretty much too late. The set-up for the two of them meeting and falling in love is rushed, unbelievable, and very Hollywood. All of that is forgivable, of course, if the jokes work, but most of them fall flat or elicit, at best, a weak smile. The best thing I can say about some of the weaker jokes is that they aren't overplayed. Kutcher in particular seems to know that understatement is the surest way to wring the most out of weak writing (or to draw less attention to it, at least) and provides a surprisingly restrained performance here. Of course, early on, this restraint serves as more of a liability as he comes off largely wooden and stiff---not unlike his chiseled abs which are on display early and often.

The best laughs are provided by the always reliable Rob Riggle. A little bit of Riggle goes a long way, but here we get just the right dose of his aggressive, obnoxious, in-your-face comedy assault. It's a nice counterpoint to Kutcher's understated performance and gives you some hope about half way through that the movie is finally getting its footing. But alas, no...it's just a good sequence in an otherwise weak movie.

Killers is an action-oriented romantic comedy which is neither funny enough, romantic enough, or thrilling enough. But it's still better than The Bounty Hunter (7% 0n RT), and that's damning praise.

Kraig's Rating: 4/10

"31 Movies, 31 Days": #1 Skyline

2011-08-06T20:04:00.003-04:00

Movie: Skyline (2010)
Budget: $10 million
Rotten Tomatoes: 16%
Format: Netflix streaming

With just a 16% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, not to mention a cast featuring second-rate television actors, Skyline seems like an obvious and easy "thumbs down". Except...not. Yes, Skyline shamelessly combines elements from Independence Day, Transformers, District 9 and countless other sci-fi invasion films, and yes, the acting leaves something to be desired, but a film like Skyline has a very simple criteria when judging it: Was that some cool shit or what? Answer: Yes. Yes, that was some cool shit.

It's clear that the $10 million budget was spent largely on the special effects, and it's money VERY well spent. The aliens and spaceships come in various sizes and are all very effectively rendered. The smaller creatures look directly ripped off from the squid-like robots in The Matrix, but they're creepy and look good roaming around the Los Angeles skyline. Most impressive, I think, is the sense of scale when looking down, at a distance, at the large, lumbering giant aliens. While special effects are not sufficient reason to recommend a movie, they do go a long ways in a movie like this.

Beyond that, however, Skyline does succeed in creating that all-important wonderment of "what's happening? why is it happening? is it happening elsewhere?" Information is very limited and for most of the movie we know only what our characters know. While those characters may not be the sharpest tools in the shed, they don't really behave in unbelievable ways. Their response to the crisis seems believable and plausible which, in turn, gives those aforementioned special effects just a bit more oomph. The ending, which I won't give away here, is surprisingly dark and twisted---not what you're expecting, even after I've told you it's not what you're expecting.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Skyline is a "good" movie, but it is, essentially, a great straight-to-DVD sci-fi movie which got itself theatrical distribution. With such a low budget, one entirely self-financed, I give a film like this just a bit more leeway than, say, Transformers. And beyond all that, the film is just kind of fun. It deserves a higher rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and if you enjoy well-made B-movies, this fits the bill. Grossing worldwide over seven times what it cost to make, a sequel is on the way...and I intend to watch it. Whenever it comes to Netflix streaming, that is.

Kraig's Rating: 5/10

No longer hating.

2011-08-06T18:01:00.003-04:00

Hello, dear readers---all three of you loyal sonsofbitches. Actually, somewhat astonishingly, it's still more than just three of you even though I haven't deigned to update Boy Hates Girl since mid-May. So, as I do about twice a year, here is my modest push to get back into the blogging business and fill the dead air around these parts.

First, a bit of an update. Although Boy Hates Girl was originally formed with the intention of being a pulpit upon which I could kvetch about women---and lord knows I love to do that---it's worth noting that that idea is now a bit outdated. You see, this boy has met a girl and, most definitely, does not hate her. I mention this principally because this particular girl, although well-traveled, intelligent and cultured, has a few major blind spots when it comes to contemporary American cinema. It's a somewhat jarring experience to have your girlfriend admit to never having seen Ghostbusters or E.T. or Die Hard...not to mention the dozen or so other classics I rattled off in quick succession. But rather than seeing this as some sort of negative, I see it as more of an opportunity. And so begins "American Cinema 101," as taught by Professor Smith. Hot for teacher, anyone?

The cinematic education of my girlfriend will, hopefully, become a regular subject here...allowing me to reevaluate the classics of my youth. "Class" is already in session and thus far has been met by mixed results. I'll get into more detail about the movies at a later date, but so far the films have included Garden State, City Slickers, Minority Report, The Thing and Escape from New York. As should now be obvious, I'm using the word "classic" very loosely. A "classic" is basically any movie I've seen that she hasn't which, at the time I saw it, I thought I liked. Obviously, that leaves a lot of room for critical reconsideration. A lot.

Another segment to look for this month is "31 Movies, 31 Days." The ball and chain is overseas for a good chunk of this month and that provides the perfect opportunity to catch up on movies that need watching. Presently, it's the sixth day of August and, thus far, I've seen seven movies. So far, so good! Last time I tried something like this was November of 2008. It looks like I only made it through 19 movies that time. I'll do better this time, and definitely won't limit myself to 30 words per movie review.

Feel free to join in on the film-heavy discussions this month.

Kraig

Nice wheels, dude.

2011-05-17T15:30:00.005-04:00

If I'm blogging, you know it's either about Rick Springfield, politics or Texas sports. Today...Rick Springfield. Somehow I missed the news that he was arrested for a DUI in Malibu on May 3rd! I guess I'm just not trolling TMZ.com as much as I used to.

Anyway, while his mugshot is, well, a little sad-looking, and while news today suggests he had threatened to "fucking kill" the arresting officer and his family if they towed his car, the real takeaway is what he was driving. Rick was driving a 1963 Corvette Stingray valued at about $200,000. This is pretty much the greatest car EVER. If ever there was a car worth threatening bodily violence over, this is it. It is BADASS. His legend grows.

As for him being drunk, he blew at .10 which is basically nothing. For comparison, .10 of a dollar is just a dime! A measly dime! You can't do jack shit with a dime.

And while we're on the subject of Corvette Stingrays, here's the opening credits to the 1985-1987 series "Stingray." Featuring an oh-so-classic 80's theme by Mike Post, "Stingray" was actually a pretty entertaining show. I especially like the clip of him in the credits showing his kung-fu moves amongst laser lights. I would not be surprised if Rick Springfield auditioned for the role, got the part and then turned it down...because he's cool like that. And then, of course, there's the car...a 1965 Corvette Stingray. That car is so cool it makes Nick Mancuso look like a badass.

I Have Suffered Long

2011-05-09T19:58:00.008-04:00

"Remembering the 1983-1984 Dallas Mavericks"

So just how old am I? Old enough that I can claim to have been present for the second ever playoff game in Dallas Mavericks history. I was ten years old on April 19, 1984, less than five months after I had been hit by a car while riding my bike to school one cool November morning. Among other serious injuries suffered that day, I had a gruesome compound fracture of my left leg, the exact same kind of fracture that infamously ended Joe Theismann's career exactly one year later on Monday Night Football. Theismann was hit by Lawrence Taylor. I was hit by a Green Pinto. Like Theismann, my injury, too, ended a promising athletic career. I went from being the second to last kid picked at sports (with a chance to become the second to the second to last kid) to the last. C'est la vie.

By April, I was still wearing a walking cast and using crutches for various movements. One such movement? Ascending the steps of Reunion Arena to claim my seat in the nosebleed seats, one row from the very top. Reunion Arena seated 17,007 fans during a sellout, and I'm quite certain there were no more than a hundred seats worse than mine. It seemingly took an hour to climb to the top, and even longer to climb down the perilously steep grade. The Mavericks had stunningly won Game 1 against the Seattle Supersonics (now known as the Oklahoma City Thunder), and Game 2 was a loud and raucous affair as we, the "Reunion Rowdies", waved our blue and white towels for the entire evening. With the game tied and the clock nearing zero, Gus Williams nailed a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to lift Seattle to a heart-breaking 95-92 win. It was the only three-point-shot attempted by Seattle. Dallas also only attempted one three-point-shot. For comparison's sake, the Mavericks and Lakers combined to take 56 three-pointers yesterday. 56 to 2. The NBA was a little different then, no?

The Mavericks ended up winning that best-of-five series in about as crazy a way as possible. I won't go over the details here, but if you're a fan of basketball and not familiar with the Midnight Moody Madness of Game 5, aka "The Wackiest Game in Franchise History," here's a nice remembrance of the evening you really should read. One little note about that game is that it was only available on pay-per-view! Can you imagine? It's the first time my team makes the playoffs and now, faced with a decisive Game 5, I have to listen to the game on the radio. The radio.

With the miraculous upset over, the emotionally and physically drained Mavs went to L.A. to play the "Showtime" Lakers. You might have heard of these guys: Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Byron Scott, James McAdoo, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, and others. Jesus. We had Jay Vincent, Pat Cummings and Kurt Nimphius. Kurt Nimphius. The Lakers won Game 1 by a ridiculous score of 134-91. It was expected. Game 2 was only slightly better as the Mavs lost 117-101. These were the Lakers. And these were the Mavericks. It was expected. But when the action shifted back to Dallas, the Mavericks did the unthinkable and took Game 3 in, relatively speaking, impressive fashion. They won 125-115 and there was a strong belief amongst Mavs fans that we really could beat the Lakers in a Best-of-7 series.

Ahh, to be young and stupid and not know what hell the Mavericks would deliver its fans over the next 27 years. Oh, how I miss those days of naive optimism. Game 4 versus L.A. is one of the more infamous games in Mavericks history. It was a back-and-forth game filled with pure emotion and the stakes could not be higher. A win would even the series and send it back to LA for Game 5...one in which all the pressure would be on LA, and all the momentum with Dallas. Near the end of regulation, the Mavericks seized the upper hand by tying the score and then getting the ball back with about twenty seconds left to play for the, potentially, game-winning basket. Our point guard, Derek Harper, dribbled the ball above the 3-point line and patiently waited. And waited. And waited. Surely he was just guaranteeing that the Lakers wouldn't have time left on the clock after his decisive shot. Right? Wrong. Believing that the Mavericks already had the lead, he dribbled the ball until the clock ran out and began his celebration. Ooops. It was off to overtime for the Mavs...and they lost. Crushed by the dispiriting feeling of "almost, but not quite," the Mavericks lost Game 5 and the series on May 8, 1984.

Yesterday, 27 years later TO THE DAY, the Mavericks finally exorcised their demons and beat the Showtime Lakers in an NBA playoff series. They failed to beat them in 1986, they failed to beat them in 1988, and every NBA expert in the world---save for Charles Barkley---predicted they would fail again in 2011. But not this time. Even better, they vanquished the Lakers in a dominating four-game-sweep, the last game by a score of 122-86 that was eerily reminiscent of the beat-down given to the Mavericks in their first playoff game against the Lakers in 1984.

As a Mavs fan, I've suffered 27 years of heartbreak and near misses. I've suffered through the Sean Bradleys and Uwe Blabs. I've suffered through the Mavs being one of the worst sports franchises in the world during the 1990's. I've suffered the indignity of making it to the 2006 finals against the Miami Heat...being up 2-0 in the series with a solid lead late in Game 3...only to lose four straight games. I've suffered being a #1 seed in the playoffs and then losing to the #8 seed---the first time that had ever happened.

I have suffered long. I have suffered much.

But I think...I believe...the suffering is coming to an end.

He'll Get Over It

2011-02-21T13:30:00.002-05:00

I'm back from Washington...and now also Dallas (happy birthday, Dad), so now seems as good as time as any to update the blog.

I'll try not to get too sports-heavy here, but spring training is upon as pitchers and catchers reported to camp last weekend. If you don't follow baseball, first, shame on you. But second, the Texas Rangers have had some unexpected drama with their roster in the past month. Michael Young, the team's captain and all-time hits leader in club history, unexpectedly demanded a trade...publicly calling out team management for having lied to him and manipulated him during the off-season. I'll spare you the deep background as to how this messy debacle came about, as well as my own opinion about who shares the greatest blame, but know that Young is undoubtedly one of the most popular members of the Rangers. It would be a close race between Josh Hamilton and Young for a fan favorite, but there's little doubt that Young has been the heart and soul of a team that has seen many bad years. Until last year's run to the World Series, no active player had played in more games without making it to the playoffs than Michael Young. He has been the proverbial face of the franchise; a bright light amidst seasons of October darkness. It's with that background I give you this priceless video:

Awwww.

Evidently, Michael Young saw this video and decided it would be a good public relations opportunity---err, I mean a sweet moment. He met with the kid and took him on a shopping spree. But here's the funny thing...the kid didn't recognize Young without his uniform and number. The mind of a three-year-old is sort of perfect. It's not about the player...it's about the uniform. If only Michael Young shared the same belief...

Ooops. Guess I gave my opinion on who should be blamed.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

2011-02-10T09:51:00.002-05:00

I'm off to Washington, DC for a long weekend, so there won't be much if anything posted here over the next few days. When I return, I'll try and keep this new-found momentum going for BoyHatesGirl. Thanks for all the positive feedback over the last two weeks.

Mystery Solved

2011-02-08T20:21:00.002-05:00

I believe it's Occam's Razor which suggests that the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one. This was proven true tonight when I figured out why my roommate had been furiously cleaning the apartment the last 48 hours. There's a man in this house! A real live man! Should've known she wasn't scrubbing the bathroom for herself. Been there and done that. If she doesn't blow it, my apartment might finally stay clean enough for me to have guests. Or rather, if she does blow it. Dick jokes. Hilarious.

My Four Sex Tapes

2011-02-07T23:31:00.005-05:00

Okay, they aren't real sex tapes, but they are sort of the equivalent---to me. There are four tapes in existence, the fourth having been made this evening, which would prove highly embarrassing for me should they ever come to light.

In no particular order, the first tape is my Real World: Boston audition tape from 1996. If I ever become famous, Jonathan Murray and Mary Ellis-Bunim will totally be searching their archives for my awkward but earnest attempt at becoming a reality television star. Somewhere I have a copy of this ill-considered idea, but I think this is one skeleton I'd rather not uncover. Let's just say I don't think the producers bought into my pitch about how they needed a regular looking nerd type to balance off the rest of the too-hot-for-real-life cast. Stupid producers. What do they know. Luckily, chances of me becoming famous dim with each passing day. Increasingly, this is a good thing.

The second tape is actually an older tape, one made in 1990 and whose whereabouts remain, mercifully, unknown. After a long and accomplished career in high school speech and debate (see tape #3 below), the wannabe star in me cried out for yet more attention. Seeking to expand my personal branding, I ventured into...as Jon Lovitz the Master Thespian might say, "Acting!" It was not my first foray into theater arts, but it had been five years since I'd given it a go and ultimately decided to eschew drama for debate. One of the events I competed in that year was Duet Acting, basically a 10-minute long performance with another partner. That partner, who shall remain unnamed since he's now a high-ranking staff member under the new Governor of California (not the old Governor, though that would be appropriate), was basically the worst actor in the history of the world. My partner made Tommy Wiseau seem like Sir Lawrence Olivier.

Our dramatic selection was Brighton Beach Memoirs by Neil Simon. I mean, we were two nerdy Jews who were both awkward with girls. What else were we going to pick? Driving Miss Daisy? Actually, that would have been genius, but I digress. As is "somewhat" allowed by the rules of the event, I proceeded to chop the play into bits and pieces...carefully editing and piecing together all the references to boobs, sex and masturbation. I basically rewrote Neil Simon into Porky's. We also gave the performance a few modern flourishes. At one point in the play my partner was required (as I wrote it) to perform a little touchdown celebration. The Ickey Shuffle was kind of a big thing in 1990, so I had him do that. Here's a video of the Ickey Shuffle for those too young to remember that titan of Cincinnati Bengal football.

We performed this piece probably 6-7 times in competition, each time gaining a slightly larger audience. Despite being a crowd favorite, the Rudy of the duet acting circuit as it were, we failed to ever advance past the preliminary round of competition. Still, before we hung up our sides, we reunited for one more performance at our speech team's Christmas party. Not gonna lie---NAILED IT. Someone shot video of this epic performance, one which ended with me pantomiming the squeezing of an imagined girl's breasts, but the video is lost...likely never to be found again until we're all just dust in the wind. Thank. God.

My third sex tape is from just a few months later. I had made it to the 1991 UIL Texas State Finals in an event known as Informative Speaking. This was a deeply ironic event for me to have been entered in as any of my teammates will gladly testify that I was anything but an informative speaker in those days. While I would splash a few facts around here and there, I was far more style than substance. I had a nice suit, I had a nice smile, and I had more confidence than I had any right to possess. Politicians make a living off of this, and high school speech was no different. I have boxes and boxes of trophies, plaques and gavels attesting to my "brilliance." Don't tell me Sarah Palin can't be elected President.

For the final (taped) speech in this particular competition, my semi-random topic (random in that I chose it from three other random topics) was about how Americans can deal with "the credit crunch." Folks, I tell'ya, I did not for the life of me have even an inkling back then as to what this so-called credit crunch was. Not. At. All. The seven-minute speech I ultimately gave, one for which I had 30 minutes of prep time, had NOTHING to do with the credit crunch. Not. At. All. My recollection is fuzzy, but for seven minutes I talked about the topic without saying ANYTHING about the topic. I probably repeated the words "credit crunch" a dozen times...to emphasize that, of course, I knew what the credit crunch was. Why define it? It's so obvious. It was the most ignorant I'd ever felt. When I see Sarah Palin dance around a question she clearly doesn't understand, THIS is the memory that comes to mind. Oh, and I also got first place and became the Texas State Champion for Informative Speaking. We're all fucked.

The latest addition to my growing list of "sex tapes" happened this evening. Unfortunately, due to disclosure agreements and the need to keep things a little hush hush, I can only speak about it in non-specific generalities for the time being. It is, however, a very cool project. In short, I was asked/volunteered to be interviewed for a feature-length documentary, one being made by a well-known documentarian. Given the breadth of the material they'll be covering for this film, there's a high probability none of my footage will even make the final cut---but that, of course, doesn't mean the tape goes away! I'll leave the overall theme of the movie also as a mystery, but my 35-40 minute interview ended up being a mini-therapy session as I looked directly into the camera and answered some very personal questions. It was fun, but I was nervous...and the experience was surprisingly intense. I responded to queries such as, "on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate yourself on looks?" I won't reveal my answer here, but I will say I opted to use decimals. Whole numbers are so non-specific. There were questions about my self esteem. Questions about my clothes, and so on and so forth. The kicker---and this weaves in very nicely with my preceding two posts---is that the producer and question-asker is...a girl I also dated briefly. Of course, that's the main reason I was even there in the first place. This wasn't another grand coincidence like the speed dating adventure. But still, it's getting to the point where I can't throw a rock in this town without hitting a girl I've dated.

Now, if only I had a rock...

Oh yeah, and this one, too. (ding)

2011-02-06T14:18:00.003-05:00

Maybe I have dated every single girl in NYC. The New York Times featured a story in today's paper about how people use Facebook to announce their relationship status---because, you know, the Times is totally at the forefront of relevant and timely social media analysis. The story prominently features a girl that I dated for about 3-4 months...a girl in whose apartment I famously vomited in five different locations one night. That was the night I learned not to mix mustard greens with whiskey, wine, vodka, tequila and chocolate stout. Hey, you never know until you try, right? Anyway, this hard-hitting piece of journalism in the Times informs me that she is now in a relationship! Congrats! Glad to see that people who date me are not irreparably harmed by the experience. Things were approaching class-action lawsuit status there for awhile.

Next week the Times will have a cover story detailing the growing interest in this newfangled communication technology called Twitter. Sounds promising.

The Greatest Story Ever Told

2011-02-05T11:47:00.003-05:00

This is a strange world we live in, and NYC may very well be the epicenter for that strangeness. I've had lots of random encounters in this city of almost 9 million people, including one last Sunday in which I ran into an old friend from Dallas I'd not seen or spoken to in over five years. I was getting off the train and he was getting on. Random. But even that sort of run-in dramatically pales in comparison to the chance encounter I had the preceding evening. It's been a week since it happened and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the astronomical odds of such a moment taking place. It truly is the most remarkable story I've ever gotten to tell.

Last Saturday I went downtown to participate in a "marathon-style" evening of speed dating. I'd done speed dating before (it's absurd, but totally fun), but only the kind where you go on 12-15 dates that last about 4-6 minutes each. This time there were 54 men and 54 women and we would go on FIFTY dates that lasted, at most, two minutes each. For the most part, marathon-style speed dating is an exercise in mass rejection. The girls mostly suck, and the guys are even worse. They hate us and we hate them. (ding) Next date. Objectively, I was easily in the top three of all the men there. That's less a compliment to myself than it is a comment on the dearth of decent men in this city. At least 10 guys were wearing Bill Cosby-like sweaters with not even a hint of irony. A few others had not yet realized they weren't exactly heterosexual, and a full head of hair was about as rare as a new Terrence Malick film. Good times.

Mercifully, the dates are exceptionally short---even shorter if you take the time to jot down a few notes on the girls as you move from table to table. My notes at the end read like the minutes from a KKK meeting. There just isn't time to put more down on paper than things like, "crazy Indian chick," or "black girl with curly hair", or "argumentative Aussie." You go for the most obvious details to help remind you who all these people were at the end of the night. One date was with a soft-spoken Chinese woman. I spent my entire two minutes with her spelling out the word trivia. T-R-I-V-I-A. That was the date. (ding) Another girl angrily lamented that there were no hot guys at the event. (ding) There were two Aussies and two Kiwis there, and each time I incorrectly identified their accent as the other. Turns out this is an insult. (ding, ding, ding, ding) And so on and so forth it went...all the while I chugged vodka drinks in epic fashion.

Towards the end of this marathon, I had a date with a pale-skinned girl with bright red lips and short brunette hair. Remarkably, especially given the limited time we had, we somehow realized that we both graduated from the University of Texas and that we had done so only one year apart. Now, if you think you know where the rest of this story is going...you don't, so stick with it. We briefly marveled at this minor coincidence and then...(ding)...time to move on. After the event was over, she sought me out at the bar where I was continuing to down drinks like Kobayshi downing Nathan's hot dogs in Coney Island. In other words, the details get fuzzy. I remember we chatted for about five minutes, and I remember we realized we were also both from Dallas. I didn't have any feelings about this at the time, but the next day that would change.

On Sunday, seemingly out of nowhere, I began to have a strange feeling that I somehow knew this girl. I often joke about how I've dated every single girl in New York, but that was far from the case in Texas. The Kraig from Texas wore sweater vests and listened to James Taylor in his dorm room during college. The Kraig from Texas wrote cheesy poetry about unobtainable girls whilst watching MST3k late at night. The Kraig from Texas, in short, did not date much. So how then did I know this girl? Did I know her? Was it in my head? Bit by bit the feeling grew, and then, finally, an implausible and utterly insane theory formed. I texted a friend that day and informed him that my theory had only a 5% chance of being true. It was that hard to imagine. This girl's name was Paulette, a rather rare name for people my age. I've only known two Paulette's in my lifetime. One cleaned our house when I was a child, and the other...

I emailed Paulette on Sunday night, whose address I'd gotten because we'd both "picked" each other at the speed dating event. I told her it was nice to have met her, but also that I had a crazy idea in my head and I was hoping she could disabuse me of the insane thought once and for all. I asked a simple question: Did you ever go to sleep-away camp in Texas? The answer came back loud and clear. YES. The pieces very quickly fell into place. Not only had she gone to Greene Family Camp in Bruceville, Texas---a Jewish camp located about 15 miles from David Koresh's compound in Waco, Texas---but she had been...wait for it....wait for it...my very first girlfriend EVER. THE VERY FIRST. It's staggering. Somehow, 27 years later, my first "girlfriend" had taken a seat across from me at a speed dating event some 1,500 miles away from where we first met.

She did not recognize me and, for the most part, I didn't recognize her. The extent of that pre-pubescent relationship was asking her to "go with me", something which lasted all of two days. We never talked, we never held hands, and we never kissed. We were only together because her two friends at camp were "going" with my two friends and we were, naturally, encouraged to close the circle. My recollection of asking her to go with me is anything but romantic. I asked her and she responded with an apathetic shrug---not unlike how things work still to this day. I eventually broke up with her when I met my second girlfriend on the archery range two days later...but that's a story for another day. The breakup went down a lot like the proposal. "Um, is it okay if we don't go together anymore?" Another apathetic shrug from Paulette and I was once again single. And that was it. She and I never talked after that (and almost not at all prior to that) until we unwittingly met again last Saturday night.

I'm going out with Paulette on a real date in just a few hours---probably more for the story than any actual chance of romantic success---but if things ever were to miraculously work out, hello, NY Times Wedding section!

It's a crazy, beautiful world.

2010: My Year in Movies (part 3: Comedy)

2011-02-04T21:08:00.002-05:00

Onward and upward to the seven 2010 comedies I saw (in 2010):

The Bounty Hunter *
Hot Tub Time Machine ***1/2
Date Night **1/2
Get Him to the Greek ***
Just Wright **
Cyrus **1/2
Toy Story 3 ****1/2

It's hard to describe just how much of a train wreck The Bounty Hunter really is. The two attractive leads have zero chemistry, the jokes are lazy and unfunny, and the plot is one of the most illogical you'll ever come across this side of an MST3K episode. Honestly, the best part is when they do an action scene to a Ke$ha song. And even THAT barely scratches the surface of one of the worst movies of 2010. It's not even one of those "so bad it's good" movies. It's just painfully bad. I watched it, evidently, so that others might not have to. Please avoid so that those two hours will not have been in total vain.

Hot Tub Time Machine is a rollicking fun trip back to the 80's that allows John Cusack to do what he does best---look sad and toss off snarky one-liners while getting the girl. Rob Corddry, however, is the real scene-stealer, and if this movie isn't evidence that he can carry a Hollywood comedy all by himself, then I don't know what else he has to do. A running joke with Crispin Glover is also immensely satisfying and, surprisingly, never gets old. Hot Tub Time Machine is lewd, it's sloppy, and it's one of the funniest films of 2010.

Date Night is one of those can't-miss comedies that doesn't, but then it doesn't exactly obliterate its target either. Tina Fey and Steve Carell are likable, comedic heavyweights, but the script largely plays it safe and gives them little to do except be swept along by the plot-heavy antics. There's (long) car chases and gun-play aplenty, and it all feels like it's taking away from comic opportunities rather than creating them. There are laughs to be had, especially in some particularly funny scenes involving a shirtless Mark Wahlberg, but Date Night is more of an amusing diversion than a memorable comedy...a kind of date night movie, really.

Get Him To The Greek borrows heavily from The Hangover formula and, for the most part, succeeds in replicating the off-the-wall comedy of its inspiration. Russell Brand reprises his character of Aldous Snow from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, a scene-stealer from that movie that showed some surprising depth. Attempts to build on that original depth, however, are a bit forced and take an unfunny, grim turn near the end. Sean Combs has a nice turn as a record producer (stretch?), and Jonah Hill is funny as always.

I went to the red carpet premiere and after party for Just Wright (ooooh lala), and I hung out with Spike Lee, Dwayne Wade, Common, Queen Latifah, and lots of famous black people I couldn't identify if my life depended on it. There was free food (nom nom nom), free booze (glug glug glug), and I got my face projected on the rooftop of the Empire Hotel (see above). These qualities alone earn Just Wright two stars. Unfortunately, the movie can't add to that 2-star total. Just Wright is one of those female-fantasy films, the answer to every movie in which Seth Rogen, Michael Cera and Jonah Hill get the impossibly hot girl. Plot: Fat girl in her mid to late 30's wins the heart of a studly NBA player at the expense of her impossibly hot, much younger, modelesque sister. I'm fine with the fantasy, but come on, make it at least as smart as the films where Seth Rogen gets the girl. The actors are likable, especially Latifah, but this is strictly for women in denial about the real world.

Speaking of Jonah Hill, Cyrus was an early 2010 release which earned high praise from many critics. In some respects, Cyrus is a good comedy, one full of dark humor and edgy, unexpected moments. Unfortunately, it also feels like an incomplete movie. I rarely say this about a film, but the characters and story of Cyrus deserved about 20-30 more minutes to truly earn the resolution they arrived at after just 92 minutes. This isn't Get Him To The Greek (109 minutes) or Hot Tub Time Machine (101 minutes). It's a more complicated movie, one in which the humor derives from characters, not plot or clever set-ups. I felt a bit cheated at the end, but that's probably an indication that I liked most of what came before.

I knew I'd enjoy Toy Story 3---it's a Pixar movie, after all---but I didn't expect to appreciate it as much as I ultimately did. As a former screenwriter, the script is a virtual role model for classic, Hollywood movie-making. It's sort of...perfect. The pacing, the roll-out of the set-up, the complications, the resolution...it's all...perfect. If you were going to teach screenwriting and story structure, this is one to look to. Add in the right amounts of wit and whimsy, the correct dose of sentimentality, that beautiful Pixar animation and, voila---a truly fantastic movie for all ages. Pixar makes it look easy, but I assure you it's not. It's a lot of talented people working to an impossibly high standard...and going beyond. Toy Story 3 cracked the list for Best Picture nominees, and it is MUCH deserved.

Animal Cruelty is Hilarious

2011-02-04T11:28:00.002-05:00

Of the many things this world could use more of, dogs tied to wires is definitely one of them.

What DO you do?

2011-01-23T14:04:00.003-05:00

This was a search string which led some unsuspecting person to my blog yesterday:

"what to do when a girl hates you when you date her sister an not tell her a bout it when you dated the girl who hate you"

My first suggestion would be to contact Jerry Springer, of course.

2010: My Year in Movies (part 2: Drama/Thriller)

2010-12-31T14:36:00.005-05:00

The 2010 list continues with a mixed bag of films, some of which are serious contenders for Oscar hardware...whether they deserve it or not. Rating is on a 5-star scale.

Drama/Thriller:

Greenberg ***
Social Network ***1/2
127 Hours ***
The Kids are Alright **1/2
Winter's Bone ****1/2
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo **1/2

Uneven and at times flat, Noah Baumach's Greenberg is still his and Ben Stiller's best work in years. While some of the dramatic moments don't quite work, there's enough levity in Baumbach's script that we can overlook the more excessive misanthropic elements in the title character. Rhys Ifans is particularly strong as Greenberg's old friend from better days.

It's hard to go wrong with a movie scripted by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher. Once upon a time I would have said Sorkin was my favorite writer and Fincher my favorite director, so putting them together should have resulted in my favorite film, right? Not exactly. Social Network is a good film, but it lacks one important element: drama. Much of the film plays out like a dramatized documentary...a sort of "this happened, then this, then this, and then this" narrative. It's interesting in terms of learning how Facebook came to be, but it ultimately fails at giving us genuine insight into the characters, or in explaining what Facebook tells us about ourselves. Sorkin's script, while entertaining with his usual pitter-patter back-and-forth, doesn't get beneath the surface.

127 Hours is another Oscar contender, but it's also another 'good but overrated film.' One of the big issues in a movie like this is how to keep things interesting when most of the action takes place in one location. And not just one location, but the same spot in that location---a small rock that pins James Franco's character inside a crevasse. I think director Danny Boyle might've out-thunk himself on this one. The build-up to the crucial accident is brilliant, as are the initial efforts to deal with the crisis. The last 1/3 of the movie, however, sees Boyle pulling every film-making trick out of the bag to remove that feeling of isolation. There's a dream sequence, there are flashbacks, there's a mirage---all of which are manipulative and, more importantly, just not necessary. The drama works just fine without these gimmicks.

But the award for most overrated film of the year goes to....The Kids Are All Right. By most accounts, this movie will garner three acting nominations for Annette Bening, Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo. I don't get it. This isn't a bad film, but it's pretty damn average. A child of a lesbian couple seeks out the sperm donor and dramedy hi-jinks ensue. Oh my! Replace the three leads with lesser known actors and put this movie on Lifetime and nobody would know the difference. Bening is over-the-top shrill, Julianne Moore is fine---for Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo does his SAME EXACT SHTICK as he does in every movie. Ruffalo is becoming the Michael Rappaport of acting...good at what they do, but incapable of doing anything else.

Winter's Bone is the best film of 2010...that I've seen. With a minuscule budget of just $2 million, it's nice to be reminded that creating great movies doesn't require great piles of money. Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes give two of the year's finest performances, but the entire supporting cast is brilliant. Director Debra Granik manages to focus on a peculiar subset of American culture---backwoods Ozark meth cookers---without ever trivializing them or becoming condescending. This ain't a tale about simple hillbillies. Winter's Bone also features one of my favorite scenes of 2010...the scene in which John Hawkes is pulled over in a traffic stop by the local sheriff. Tense stuff. I love movies where the characters surprise you with their actions...but yet their actions make complete sense. That's rare...and wonderful. There's plenty of it to be had in Winter's Bone.

The first of three movies in the VERY popular Steig Larson series, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is stunningly average. THIS is what all the hype is about? THIS is what they're doing an American remake of? Huh? Look, I know people like this movie and the books because of the main female character, ably played by Noomi Rapace here. I get it. She's edgy, she's strong, she's weird. Fine. But the plot into which she's dropped is so pedestrian and so cliche that it wastes much of what makes her interesting. The pacing is very slow in the film's first half, and the mystery unfolds in the second half much like a bad P.I. television show from the 1980s. Bottom line? This is a "slightly" above-average mystery tale.

2010: My Year in Movies (part 1: Horror/Sci-fi)

2010-12-30T14:28:00.012-05:00

It's been a less-than-prolific year for this barely-breathing-blog, but I figured I'd at least close 2010 out with a somewhat prolific list of the new movies I've seen over the past twelve months. Since I've watched more movies this year than I care to count (fuck you, Netflix-on-demand), the following list comprises only films which were released in 2010. The list totals 33 movies, several of which symbolize my willingness to watch anything so long as it can be done with the simple touch of a button (I'm looking at you, Bounty Hunter). Ratings are done on a five-star scale.

Sci-Fi/Horror:

Daybreakers **

Legion *1/2
The Crazies ***
The Human Centipede **1/2
Tron: Legacy ***1/2
Predators **
Splice **1/2

Daybreakers wins the award for "best preview and best poster with worst payoff," as the movie was about a hundred times duller than its very cool-looking trailer. The reality is this movie bites. Get it? It's a vampire movie starring Ethan Hawke. Star of Reality Bites! (fist pump)

Legion is about a British-accented angel...toting machine guns...battling God-sent zombies in Rio Bravo-style isolation. Honestly, how do you fuck that up---because they totally did. Also, Dennis Quaid is kind of an awful actor. I'm retroactively realizing this now that his looks have faded.

The remake of George Romero's The Crazies is surprisingly taut and features a likable lead performance from Timothy Olyphant. Joe Anderson, as bland of a stage name as one can have, gives a performance that's anything but. He's an up-and-comer about to break out and this supporting role is evidence.

The Human Centipede is neither as gross as its buzzy reputation, nor as schlocky. While it isn't a "good" film, it is actually sort of charming and clever...um, that is for a film about a mad surgeon who sews three people together from mouth-to-anus-to mouth-to-anus. Looking forward to 2011's "The Human Centipede: The Second Sequence"!

The premise for Tron was (and remains) utterly ridiculous, but there's no denying the sexy-cool vibe of its long-awaited sequel. It runs about 20 minutes too long, but the return to "The Grid" is satisfying for fans of the original. Michael Sheen is at his scenery-chomping best as a charismatic nightclub owner.

As a big fan of the original Predator movie, I had high hopes that producer Robert Rodriguez would restore dignity to this in-the-dumps franchise. Did he succeed? Eh. It's better than all the other Predator-related sequels, and Adrien Brody is surprisingly effective as the commando leader, but overall the movie lacks charisma, originality and effective pacing. Also, I'll take Carl Weathers and Jesse "the Body" Ventura over Topher Grace and Walton Goggins, thank you very much.

Oh hey, look--another Adrien Brody sci-fi film. Splice is one of those films that sneaks up on you and makes you enjoy it in spite of itself. The two lead characters, annoying hipster geneticists, are fundamentally unlikable. Even having to shoulder this burden, the film excels thanks to a fine performance by Delphine Chaneac as the hybrid life-form co created by Brody and Sarah Polley. A little kinky, a little weird, a little campy...Splice is kinda fun.

I was there.

2010-12-05T20:53:00.006-05:00

As many of you know by now, Steve Martin appeared at the 92nd Street Y last Monday to have a conversation with art writer and New York Times Magazine "Questions for" contributor Deborah Solomon. At the event's conclusion I knew I'd seen something awkward and unexpected, but I didn't realize exactly how newsworthy it would become. In the six days that have followed, fueled mostly by the ill-conceived decision by the 92nd Street Y to send out a letter to its patrons giving them a refund while condemning the quality of the event, this tale and various narratives have been spun at The New York Times, Mediate, Salon, NPR, and again today with Steve Martin's op-ed in The Times. Most all of these accounts contain some sort of caveat admitting they weren't there, conveniently giving themselves a net to fall back on as they joyously lambaste whichever side their readers would enjoy hearing lambasted. Thanks to a good friend of mine who had an extra ticket, I was there...and this is my account.

If you read some of the articles associated with this so-called "fiasco", it's easy to get a very skewed idea about what took place. It really sounds as though a boorish audience hissed and yelled for Steve Martin to do SNL-inspired sketch humor. This could not be further from the truth. My seats were about middle-middle so I had a pretty good view of the stage and all that was going on around me. The audience, while being older (as one would expect at a $50/seat 92nd Street Y event), was enthused and somewhat electric as Martin took to the stage with Deborah Solomon. I should note at this point that I am a Steve Martin fan without being a fanatic. That said, Martin has such tremendous presence and charisma that even sitting in a chair listening to him talk about art was, initially, quite a treat. And lest you think it was all serious, as many of the articles have led their readers to believe, it wasn't. Martin, while being a serious writer with a serious passion for the subject of art, is still Steve Martin. He's engaging, he's witty, and he was arguably the most perceptive person in attendance that evening. He kept discussion of his new book, The Object of Beauty, somewhat light and, at times, gently encouraged his interviewer to do the same.

No doubt because she's a fan and friend of Steve Martin as well as a fan of the book she had professed to reading twice already (including once that very day), Deborah Solomon focused all of her attention on the book---as has been widely and correctly reported. This focus, however, was not the main problem---as has been incorrectly reported. The problem is that Solomon, however well-intentioned she may have been, simply wasn't very good at leading this conversation. Solomon discussed the book in the same way a Park Slope-based book club might tackle The Kite Runner. She took us through the book's plot---chapter by chapter at one point. At at least two different points, over Steve Martin's very correct objections, she flipped through the book to find and read certain passages she liked. I think I speak for everyone in the audience when I say that if anyone was going to read a passage from the book, it surely should have been its author. And that, in a nutshell, was the main issue. The restlessness of the audience, from my seat anyway, was not that we were being subjected to a dull discussion of art, but rather that the interviewer was unable to get in synch with either the interviewee or the audience. Nobody was there to see Solomon. And yet, at about 35 minutes into the interview, we'd heard as much or more from Solomon as we had from Steve Martin.

The pivotal moment in the evening came when a 92nd Street Y rep walked on stage and handed Solomon a card. Having seen many lectures like this, it's not that uncommon to have a note passed like this. It's usually an admonishment about time or some other issue of conversational flow. It's also usually NOT READ. Solomon read the card aloud and it basically said something like "ask him about his career in general." This elicited a rather loud ovation from the audience which, I admit, made me cringe. However disappointing it may have been to watch Solomon botch this interview, it still felt like a harsh audience reaction. That said, the stories about the event often report this loud ovation as evidence of the audience wanting to hear Martin talk about The Jerk or his "wild and crazy guy" days on Saturday Night Live. That's not really how I interpreted things. I took the ovation to be more of a "thank god, they're finally telling Solomon to stop aimlessly talking about the book like a 5th grade book report" applause.

Unfortunately, the audience questions which followed and became the focus for the last 15 minutes or so, were your typical, inane audience questions that, of course, reinforced the notion that the audience was only interested in getting the real scoop on It's Complicated or Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Are any audience questions ever good? The few questions that were submitted on cards were not too dissimilar to the kind of questions we used to see on The Chris Farley Show. Deborah Solomon had little interest in asking those questions and Steve Martin had even less interest in answering them. To his credit, Martin remained quippy throughout the train wreck and was quite entertaining. His patience did wane by the end, however, and he ended the hour right on the dot like a high-priced Upper East Side therapist. "I see our time is up," is effectively how it ended.

A few final thoughts. First, I can't believe this is a story. All this should ever have been was a mediocre event that, as the 92nd Street Y reps described it, didn't quite "gel." It should have been a story for the 850 or so people in attendance and that's about it. I had a good time relaying the disaster (over-hyping it myself in the process, I admit) to co-workers the next day. I don't blame the 92nd Street Y for sending Solomon a card trying to get her to change gears, and nor do I blame them for issuing refunds to patrons who weren't happy. But sending a letter to everyone admitting that it was a disaster---effectively blaming Steve Martin (Solomon was not referenced in the letter)? The second I saw that letter I knew they'd stepped in some deep doodoo and they've been backtracking ever since. Even if 300 of the 850 people there demanded refunds, you do that business individually...not en masse in public. Stupid. Just stupid.

Second, it's funny to see how diverse accounts of an event can be---especially by those who weren't even there. I don't suggest that my account is 100% correct by any means. It's as subject to bias and conjecture as anyone else's, I suppose. But if you take the time to read many of the articles about this story, you'll likely find yourself confused about what really happened. I even saw one headline from overseas which had somehow translated events into something like "Steve Martin Booed off stage at NYC Comedy Club." For what it's worth, this first-hand account is very similar to my own and puts the blame squarely at the feet of Solomon.

So who are the winners and who are the losers?

Winner: Steve Martin

He was good! When he spoke about art he spoke intelligently and passionately. He was amusing, he was polite, and he was perceptive enough to do his best to keep things from going off the rails. He's also had a fun time with it on Twitter as evidenced by some of these hilarious tweets:

"I am offering to erase my signature from signed books at 92nd St. Y."

"Made love to wife. She demanded refund. Trusting wife said she was not expecting “book chat” in the middle of love-making ordeal."

Loser(s): Deborah Solomon and 92nd Street Y

Those that were there know that Solomon was the real culprit. I'm sure she meant well, and moderating an interview is no easy task, but she still failed in about a dozen different ways. Given the chance to right the ship, she pretty much kept it on course for the iceberg. As for the Y, their PR team needs to go back to school and take "what the fuck did you think was going to happen 101!".

The Third Most Humiliating Thing Is...

2010-11-16T18:04:00.004-05:00

...photo-shopping my own love handles out of a picture.

The second most humiliating thing is realizing I only know how to do this in MS Paint. Badly.

And the most humiliating thing? Just giving the fuck up and asking a 22-year-old girl I met in an Atlantic City bar to do it for me....while explaining to her it was only because I was wearing my jeans too high that day.

Dignity is dead.

Thanks to my friend Jeanette O'Keefe for throwing a "Portrait Party" this past weekend. She's super talented even when her subjects aren't. You can check out more of her work here.

Investment Opportunity

2010-11-13T17:50:00.004-05:00

Last night I had a brilliant idea for a Jewish-themed strip club. "Yom Strippur" is set to open in Greenpoint in the summer of 2011. Right now I'm looking for investors and strippurs...in either order. If you know of any, send them this way. Shalom.

The Ten Things I Hate About...

2010-11-12T16:50:00.004-05:00

Really? I haven't posted anything since June 22nd? Wow. How lazy am I? Well, since I paid for a renewal of my domain name last month (actually, it was set to automatic renewal so I didn't have a choice in the matter...otherwise we're probably not having this conversation), I might as well try and average something less than $24.95 per post a year. But I am still lazy, so let's ease back into this with a simple list of ten things that I've been hatin' on the last few weeks. You know...a "back to my roots" kind of post.

1) Derek Jeter winning another Gold Glove.

2) A John Boehner-led House of Representatives.

3) Crank 2: High Voltage

4) The utter lack of audience attractiveness at last week's Rick Springfield concert.

5) John Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity.

6) Turning a year older last month.

7) Subclinical hyperthyroidism.

8) Blogging.

9) Twitter.

10) Morgan.

Yep, that's a good start.

New Music Tuesday

2010-06-22T02:03:00.003-04:00

New segment? The beginning of this blog's comeback? No. But here's some new music from Stars anyway. Their new album, "The Five Ghosts," doesn't seem to be as strong as previous efforts, but they can still crank out some listenable tracks like Fixed...not that it was broke to begin with.

A Rapey Vibe

2010-06-13T01:01:00.001-04:00

Eyjafjallajökull

2010-05-16T20:45:00.002-04:00

If I were stranded somewhere in Europe due to the ash cloud from Eyjafjallajökull, this sublime time-lapse video might make me think it was all worth it. Shot by Sean Steigemeier, this is steigeringly beautiful. It's not even clear to me where his greatest talent lay---in videography, or in the editing. His other videos, accessible here, are equally astonishing.

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull - May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

Friday Night Video

2010-05-15T10:56:00.002-04:00

In a world that manages to give us Ke$ha, it's good to know that the last, true living legend of music is still going strong at 83. I liked Tony Bennett long before I started working at The Met, where I've had the pleasure of meeting him several times (and will do so once again in just a few hours), and I liked him long before he managed to hook the MTV generation in the 90's. He epitomizes smooth without even a hint of arrogance and pretentiousness. His voice is singular, his legacy unquestioned. Tony is the man. And you know what? He'd probably do a duet with Ke$ha, because that's just how he rolls.

p.s. Ke$ha is kind of awesome.

The Dark Side

2010-05-12T17:13:00.003-04:00

I now have not one, but two Twitter accounts. Only the original @kraigala account will show up on the side bar here, however, so if you want to hear what @Evil_Kraigala has to say, you'll have to seek him out beyond this blog. @Evil_Kraigala, quite frankly, is a dick. In other words, he's not that much different from @kraigala, but maybe a tad saltier. Or, as I like to think of it, a little more genuine.

Trailer Tuesday

2010-05-11T14:44:00.002-04:00

Last I checked, Tuesdays around here were reserved for movie trailers, so let's pick things up where we left off.

Last weekend's opening of Iron Man 2 brought with it the debut of two highly anticipated trailers. The one for J.J. Abrams' Super 8 is worth seeing but, annoyingly, it's a major tease. Given that the movie won't open for another year, expect another slow build-up to the release date ala Cloverfield. Abrams sure does know how to feed the hype monster.

Much less of a tease, however, is the newly released trailer for Christopher Nolan's Inception...a film I've been eagerly anticipating for some time now. This third trailer finally includes dialogue and a much clearer explanation of the mind-bendy plot. Fantastic director + fantastic cast + fantastic concept + fantastic trailer = my number one most-wanted film of the summer. The film also appears to be heavily influenced by another favorite film of mine, the Alex Proyas-directed Dark City. The film hits theatres on July 16th and it looks like it might be worth spending the extra coin to see it in IMAX.

I can't quit you. Or, I can...but I won't. Yet.

2010-05-11T14:08:00.003-04:00

It's been a long, long time since this blog was properly updated, and I can't say that I missed it much during the 50-day hiatus.

The two most challenging aspects of being a day-to-day blogger are: 1) having something worth writing about, and 2) having the time to adequately write about the thing which is worth writing about. In terms of writing, I've always been a plodder. I don't type exceptionally fast and, despite what shows up on the page, I actually tend to edit myself quite a bit before hitting the "publish" button. Add that to a rather strict criteria for what I deem blog-worthy, and voila---the death of a blog!

It also didn't help that Blogger.com did away with ftp-enabled blogs, thus forcing me to pay attention to the back-end of boyhatesgirl.com. I hate dealing with back-end issues! Hopefully that's all resolved now and I've got it right, but if you should notice any broken links or something that's not quite right, do let me know and I'll try to get that fixed.

So, Boy Hates Girl is back. Miss me?

Don't answer that.

Testes, 1-2-3

2010-05-11T12:38:00.002-04:00

It's been 50 days since my last update, but all you get for now is this simple test post. The blog is being moved around by Blogger, so I'm trying to figure out if this is going to work. Stay tuned for more.

219

2010-03-22T00:03:00.003-04:00

The Health Care Reform bill passed the House this evening, effectively closing the chapter on one of the most historic and vitriolic debates in American history. Not a single Republican voted for the bill. That's not a surprise, I suppose, but it is somewhat disappointing. I find it intellectually dishonest that ZERO Republicans actually support the substance of this legislation. I just don't believe it. Nonetheless, for better or worse, the Democrats are now the proud owners of one of the biggest legislative initiatives in history. Will it be effective? I hope so, but as with all major reforms, only time will tell. Will it "ruin our country" as John Boehner claimed this morning? I think we can safely say that "no" it will not. And if you happen to believe it will, then you're clearly not someone who puts a lot of faith in the strength and endurance of America---which, ironically, is what Republicans often like to accuse Democrats of. What might ruin our country, however, is hyperbolic claims like the ones we've seen spouted over these last tempestuous months. I'd like to think that sort of behavior will abate, but with midterms coming up and the GOP ready to gain seats, I think it's just beginning---on both sides.

So what now for the Democrats? I think they need to do five things:

1) Take about three minutes to celebrate this victory and move on. This is an epic achievement, yes, but it's still a controversial one. Gloating will not sit will. Obama has already struck the right tone in remarks tonight by not wanting to make it a "political" win. Even though the Republicans didn't want this bill, they had a hand in making parts of it stronger. The Democrats would be well served to remind people of this...if only to further quash the idea that this somehow circumvented the constitutional process of law making.

2) Make sure this bill is implemented correctly. Much like the war in Iraq, the mission isn't accomplished just because you achieve one victory. Rebuilding a nation requires significant planning, and rebuilding a health care system is not terribly different. It can't be done half-assed. There are bound to be unforeseen problems with a 2,000 page bill and the government has a duty to deal with these issues as zealously as they pursued passage of the bill. It's not sexy or exciting, but THIS is where I think Obama can set himself apart from Bush...by being not just about big ideas, but by showing the will to make sure it gets done right.

3) Pick a less complicated, less controversial legislative issue as the next item for business. Obama seems poised to make immigration reform his next big ticket item, but I think this would be a mistake. I like that he's ambitious and doesn't shy away from tackling the big issues, but perhaps a simpler topic is in everyone's best interests right now? Something that doesn't spark fiery passions on both sides? Something that doesn't have racial overtones at its fringes? Something with clear bipartisan support? Just saying.

4) Let the GOP talk. And talk. And talk. There's a lot of angry Republicans out there tonight, and angry people say and do stupid things. Let them. Democrats should take this opportunity to avoid the fray, put their heads down, and move forward with business. Leading by example gets noticed. You don't need to point it out like a sibling telling their parent that their brother or sister hit them first. Let the GOP be the party of hyperbolic complainers. Democrats just need to do their job.

5) Supporters of Democrats should already be thinking about the midterms, and should plan to write checks to the most vulnerable members of Congress. It's a given that Democrats will lose seats, but how many is still very much up in the air. Here's an article highlighting some of the names you should makes your checks payable to.

On a personal note, I'm obviously thrilled with passage of this bill. It's not been a good debate, however, and it's really somewhat of a dark chapter in this nations rhetorical history. Accusations of death panels, absurd comparisons to socialism, our President being called a liar by a congressman during a speech, some Tea Party protesters resorting to racial epithets, and even tonight, pro-life Democrat Rep. Bart Stupak was called a "baby killer" by another member of the House. Is this the best we can do? It's not so easy to dismiss these instances as the random acts of crazies on the fringe right. Congress, and Republicans specifically, have done little to dampen this low-brow frenzy. In fact, their actions have repeatedly encouraged it and stoked the fire. Tonight, as a protester disrupted proceedings inside the House chamber with a chant of "Kill the Bill!", many Republicans applauded and cheered the man as he was removed. This morning, responding to reports that some Tea Party protesters had shouted the word "nigger" at members of the Black Caucus, and the word "faggot" at Barney Frank, Rep. Devin Nunes of California downplayed it by saying, "Yeah, well I think that when you use totalitarian tactics (referring to the Democrats), people, you know, begin to act crazy. I think, you know, there’s people that have every right to say what they want. If they want to smear someone, they can do it." Lovely response, sir.

Look, I know the Democrats aren't perfect...and I know the Republicans don't all think, speak, vote and act alike, but I'm proud to be with this President and this party tonight.

"I wish you had created me so I could die."

2010-03-21T20:04:00.003-04:00

There's just something about a plastic bag blowing in the wind. American Beauty essentially won the Oscar for Best Picture by recognizing this fundamental truth, and now comes an 18-minute existential short film, masterfully narrated by Werner Herzog, in which a plastic grocery bag goes in search of its maker. It helps to be in the right mood for this, but evidently I was when I watched it this morning. Herzog isn't the narrator exactly, but more the inner voice of the discarded bag. Like any good existential tale, it's beautiful, thought provoking, a little cheesy, and a little bittersweet. Herzog is such a loon in real life that initially his voice has a strictly comedic effect, but the earnestness of Herzog's voice ultimately gives this piece a genuine sense of purpose. Also, note that Herzog, a fantastic director in his own right, only lends his voice to this effort. The film, Plastic Bag, is actually the creation of Ramin Bahrani.

A few hours after I watched this, I went for a walk and took this picture:

I'm not gonna say I cried, but I'm not gonna say I didn't, either.

Margaret Moth: 1951-2010

2010-03-21T17:29:00.004-04:00

This striking image is one of those rare pictures which seems to perfectly capture the essence of its subject. I remember watching the news when Margaret Moth was shot in the face in Sarajevo in 1992, and it disturbs me as much today as it did then. She died of cancer this morning, and CNN has done a marvelous job memorializing her life. She was larger than life, fearless, and a true pioneer. It's worth checking out her obit here.

"39 Blowjobs"

2010-03-20T15:24:00.002-04:00

Okay, I admit it, it's becoming increasingly clear that I lack the motivation to keep this blog updated regularly. Blogger.com is also taunting me now by insisting I abandon my domain since they will no longer support FTP uploads. I should probably figure that mess out before too long, but boyhatesgirl.blogspot.com just doesn't roll off the tongue quite as easily.

But hey, as long as I'm on here, here's a fascinating video that shows a montage of the clapboard operator on Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. One of the things that makes Tarantino such a gifted filmmaker is his obvious love for film, and it's also clear he surrounds himself with similar people. Basterds was a fantastic movie, and it looks like it would've been a fun set to be on, too.

The Song Lives On

2010-03-18T00:04:00.002-04:00

Trailer Tuesday

2010-03-09T16:21:00.003-05:00

There are lots of things to enjoy in the newly released trailer for Tron: Legacy, the long-awaited sequel to the ahead-of-its-time original. I re-watched the original Tron (1982) in a movie theatre a few years ago and it was a decidedly mixed experience. On the one hand, there's little doubt that the visual effects and production design had held up shockingly well. Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner were sillier than I remembered, but Bridges, as arcade owner Kevin Flynn, still epitomized wise-cracking cool. He was a "real world" version of Han Solo in my eyes. Overall, however, the movie is a cheesy Disney film replete with corny dialogue and melodramatic moments. It's a must-see film for any fan of science fiction, but I'm comfortable in my assessment that Tron is not a good film, but, perhaps more significantly, an important one.

28 years later----

(cough, cough) Sorry. I actually choked on those words for a moment. As someone who owned many of the records on the Tron video game machine at Mr. Jim's Pizza in Garland, Texas in 1982, you can appreciate the momentary shock of having to explicitly face the fact it was almost THREE DECADES ago. (repeat: I am not getting old, I am not getting old, I am not getting old). Anyway, 28 years later we finally have a full preview for the sequel and it looks fantastic. It seems to have kept most of what made the original a unique entry into cinematic history while simultaneously (I hope) refining it for a contemporary audience. It looks dark and feels more adult than the original. It's also filmed in 3-D and that should provide an extra layer of sensory pleasure. Yep, I'll be seeing this opening weekend.

Tron: Legacy in HD

Trailer Park Movies MySpace Video

Friday Night Video

2010-03-06T17:07:00.004-05:00

Unless you've been living under a rock this past week, you've probably already seen the new OK Go video for their new single "This Too Shall Pass." With over 5 million YouTube views in 5 days, it's easily one of the "big things" of the week...and with good cause. While the band itself is not a personal fave of mine, there's no doubt they set the bar for originality in music video. Their 2005 video for "A Million Ways" was one of the first things I saw when I moved to New York and its low-budget charm mesmerized me to no end. Their next big video, "Here It Goes Again," launched them into the stratosphere and cemented their reputation for bar-raising videos. I spent a good 20 minutes last night trying to learn a 10-second secret handshake, so I can't imagine how long it took to coordinate a complicated, one-take music video where four guys dance on treadmills. But as great as those two videos are, this new one might even be better. There's even a sly reference to the video for "Here It Goes Again," a sort of out with the old and in with the new joke. Behold.

Trailer Tuesday

2010-03-03T17:26:00.003-05:00

Today's trailer isn't for a movie, but rather a book. My boss, Harold Holzer, has written and edited almost 40 books on the subject of Abraham Lincoln and can safely be considered one of the leading Lincoln scholars in the world. And yet, if you added up all the sales of all the books he's been associated with, I suspect the number will fall far short of the expected sales of this forthcoming gem. From the writer who brought you "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," I give you "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter."

Update: I just read that Tim Burton has acquired the film rights to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I'll go ahead and start the lobbying for Dakota Fanning to play Mary, and for Tony Shalhoub to play Abe. Picture it.

Movie Roundup: (5) Death at a Funeral & (6) Moon

2010-02-28T14:01:00.003-05:00

Movie #5: Death at a Funeral (2007---on DVD)

British people, a funeral, a corpse, a gay midget, a nude man on the roof. Blend it together, sprinkle with a dash of comedy of manners, and you get a fairly typical British farce, one replete with slamming doors, falling coffins and bad teeth. Death at a Funeral isn't a bad film by any means, but originality is not its strong suit. It's what I like to call a "slight" comedy, a film that's easily digested, has one or two big laughs, and then is out of your memory as quickly as it entered. You've probably seen similar films before, and they've probably been as good or better. Interestingly, it's the American actors which shine in this British-made film. Alan Tudyk (Firefly) of Plano, Texas is hilarious as an uptight Brit who accidentally gets a quadruple dose of hallucinogenic drugs on the way to the funeral. His story reminded me of HBO's Six Feet Under, in which some of the best scenes always involved people high on drugs trying to maintain some semblance of sanity during formal dinners of funerals. It's gimme schtick, but it works and works well. Peter Dinklage also excels as the aforementioned gay midget. Dinklage is virtually flawless in every film he appears in and brings a quiet dignity to roles which, let's face it, are not exactly scripted as overly dignified. It's a credit to his immense talent. Death at a Funeral is breezy, fun fare, but if you need to write a review of it, you better take notes. You won't remember one bit of it.

Rating: 5/10

Movie #6: Moon (2009---on DVD)

Of all the Oscar nomination snubs this year, none stands out more than the unrecognized performance of Sam Rockwell in Moon. Playing multiple versions of himself and, essentially playing the only character in the movie, the emotional and dramatic weight of Moon is squarely on Rockwell's shoulders. He delivers. Moon is a throwback science fiction movie with obvious nods to films like Silent Running, 2001, and Outland---all favorites of mine. Even the remarkable (for the money) special effects are heavy on throwback techniques such as the use of life-like miniatures. With a budget of just over $5 million, first-time director (and screenwriter) Duncan Jones impresses on all levels. It's hard to discuss Moon without giving away some of its well-kept secrets, so I'll just say that Sam Rockwell plays a man nearing the end of a three-year mining contract on the moon. Anxious to return home to his wife and daughter, he's all alone up there, save for the companionship of a Hal-like robot voiced by Kevin Spacey. It's my experience that the better the movie, the less I want to talk about it, and that's the case here. Just see it. If you're even a causal fan of sci-fi, this should move to the top of your queue. It's one of the best films of last year, and Rockwell gives, perhaps, the year's finest performance.

Rating: 9/10

Friday Night Video

2010-02-27T14:25:00.002-05:00

Still falling down on the job with this blog, but let's slap something up here to try and regain some momentum, shall we? This week I have yet another Brooklyn-based musician to present to you, and this week he happens to be a friend of mine.

I met Josh Garrett-Davis about four years ago when he used to work in my department at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Now he's a freelance writer and editor and also performs (very occasionally) as a solo folk guitar musician. He's also the front-man for the Krylls, an industrial-strength metal-punk band. Watch the video below and then try to imagine him wearing a gas mask on stage while screaming out barely intelligible lyrics. It's hard to imagine, but the dude can roll hard. I much prefer his folk stylings, however, and the song below, Blue Scare, is a clever and bittersweet combination of the 1950's Joseph McCarthy Red Scare era with contemporary heartache.

I don't think Josh would take great umbrage if I say he's not the greatest guitar player, doesn't have the greatest voice, and that sometimes his lyrics can go off the rails. That said, I've seen Josh perform live about a half dozen times now and his shows are damn entertaining. He's one of the smartest people I know and his lyrics often reflect this intelligence. He's also one of the most sincere people I know, and that sincerity is on full display in Blue Scare. I love this song.

Blue Scare from michael beach nichols on Vimeo.

Oh, right. This thing.

2010-02-22T15:52:00.005-05:00

It's been a little over two weeks since I last wrote something for this blog, an absence I attribute to various reasons---listed below in no particular order:

* I was vacationing in Jamaica for five days.
* There was laundry to do.

* I was breaking the heart of a Penthouse Pet (story for another day, kids).
* I had nothing worth saying.

I still don't have much to say, but I will struggle past that obstacle and spit out a story I like to call, "The Curious Case of the Jamaican Jerk Sauce."

One of the most enduring stereotypes of Jamaica is that it's a weed-loving country where people walk around from morning until night with blunts dangling from their mouths...usually as they play soccer and listen to Bob Marley. This was mostly true. While pot is illegal in Jamaica, it didn't stop the local population from furtively (and not so furtively) offering me "smoke" twice within 15 minutes of clearing customs in Montego Bay. By week's end I had been offered pot just shy of a dozen times. None of this seemed unusual at the time or in retrospect. What was unusual was the transaction that went down on the evening before my return to New York.

The resort I stayed at had a basketball court which Rich (travel bud) and myself availed ourselves of on several of the days there. The court was somewhat out of the way and, except for a kid from the Bronx which Rich schooled with little to no effort (niiiiice), nobody else ever visited the courts. Our last night there, despite a lengthy list of bumps, bruises and abrasions incurred from the week's (unexpectedly) physical activities, we decided to go head-to-head one more time. Rich ended up winning the game 21-14, but this was definitely a moral victory for me. My strategy of backing into the lane, dribbling in place for 30-45 seconds, and then jumping backwards with a wild bank shot worked with alarming success. While I would like to credit my natural athletic gifts for the closer-than-expected final result, I think Rich had been distracted by our mid-game encounter with The Bacon Chef.

About half way through our marathon game of futility, we noticed a man slowly approaching us from the distance. He seemed to be a worker at the resort and his slow, careful movements suggested he was about to offer us drugs. As is typical in these situations, the affable man inquired about our vacation and engaged in a little chit-chat. Then he asked, "How do you like the food?" "It's good. Very good." we replied. His eyes lit up and he proudly announced he was The Bacon Chef. For a good while we thought he meant The Baking Chef...but we've since elected to go with Bacon. "What was the best thing you ate so far?" he inquired. The answer to this question was pivotal. I'd be fascinated to know what would have happened next had we answered something like, "the bacon" or "the soft serve ice cream" or the "pineapple tempura." But no. We answered..."the jerk chicken from last night was awesome." Having fallen into his trap, he smiled. "The jerk sauce here is THE best sauce. You can't get that anywhere else. Nobody else knows how to make it." Rich and I look at each other. This was the strangest drug dealer ever.

"You guys want some jerk sauce to take home? Not the diluted stuff. The real stuff." Was he really going to sell us illegal jerk sauce? Yes. Yes, he was. Rich, perhaps because of his Cajun background, was far more interested in this transaction than I was, and thus fanned the flames. After Rich said he was interested in procuring some, The Bacon Chef said, "Wait here. I'm going to get you a sample. You'll see. You've never had anything like it." Off he went, and back to the game Rich and I went. Sure enough, about 10 minutes later, The Bacon Chef returned with a plastic cup of jerk sauce. Rich and I both sampled it and, true to his word, it was the best jerk sauce I've ever had---a little sweet, but definitely with a strong kick. It was good enough to drink. "How much for a bottle?" Rich asked. The Bacon Chef seemed as though he was making it up on the fly when he declared he had two sizes. Rich opted for the smaller bottle which was going to cost him $20. Always a victim of peer pressure and never able to say no to a salesman, I, too, agreed to buy a bottle of said jerk sauce.

"Okay, here's how it's going to work," our sauce dealer informed us. "You give me half the money now, and half the money tomorrow when you get the sauce." Rich and I glanced at each other and shared the exact same thought: we were never going to see this money or the jerk sauce again. "I'll call your room tomorrow and let you know where to meet me." Now resigned to the fact that this was a charitable donation to the local population, we rummaged through our pockets for money. "We only have $13," Rich said. "I'll take it," said the grabby Bacon Chef. We gave him our money, received some vague instructions, and off he went. We resumed our game and Rich, no doubt troubled by the prospect of not getting the jerk sauce he so desperately wanted, proceeded to let me go on an Eduardo Najera-like scoring binge.

At the game's conclusion we walked back toward the resort area and encountered the dealer for yet a third time. "I work from 3:00am to 12pm. What time should I call your room?" "Not at 3:00am," Rich quickly replied. "Call at 8:30am," I said. "Rich, will answer." We gave him our room number, he left, and then we took odds on whether he would actually call. Because I was dutifully sleeping in the next morning, the rest of this story is a secondhand account as relayed to me from Rich. Sure enough, just before 8:30am, the phone call comes. Rich is given specific instructions to "ask for The Bacon Chef" at the Negril Buffet. Rich arrives at the buffet and, after an awkward encounter with the hostess who kept trying to seat him, he explains that he's looking for The Bacon Chef. She signals to someone with a walkie talkie who then radios to the back for The Bacon Chef. Out he comes and, in an exchange not unlike those on The Wire, cash is rapidly exchanged for two bottles of illegal jerk sauce.

Rich returns to the room---by which point I'm up and awaiting the results of his deal. He had already opened his bottle and was drinking from it, but sure enough he had the shit. And it was gooooood:

Needless to say, I came home from Jamaica and bought eight pounds of chicken.

Movie Roundup: (3) Away We Go & (4) Push

2010-02-07T14:02:00.004-05:00

Movie #3: Away We Go (2009---on DVD)

Directed by Sam Mendes and scripted by Dave Eggers, the indie road comedy Away We Go boasts an impressive enough pedigree, but one that doesn't quite realize its full potential. The story is simple enough---a young 30-something couple, played with realistic chemistry by The Office's John Krasinsky and Saturday Night Live's Maya Rudolph---set off on a trip to locate the home in which they will raise their forthcoming child. Like any road comedy, they come across a variety of kooky characters that create equally kooky situations. While these encounters do have their funny moments, by and large the supporting cast is way, WAY over the top. This isn't a problem if you're making a movie like Road Trip, but it is a problem if you're making a movie which also wants to be taken seriously...which Away We Go most definitely does. While I love actresses Allison Janney, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Catherine O'Hara, their scenery-eating performances just don't mesh with the sweet, understated (by comparison) comedic interactions of our two leads. The movie works best when they encounter more realistic characters to help reflect their own anxieties and insecurities---such as Rudolph's character's sister, and their old college friends who now live in Canada and raise a family of adopted children. For all of the jokes and bits that don't work in Away We Go, however, there are plenty that do. Krasinsky has an affable, deft comedic touch, and Rudolph is a true revelation here. Away We Go is not all that it could have been, but it's enough to recommend.

Rating: 7/10

Movie #4: Push (2009---on DVD)

Filmed entirely in Hong Kong, a location that lends itself to some truly beautiful cinematography here, Push begins strongly enough on the basis of its interesting premise, but the early momentum rapidly dissipates with the introduction of a weak love story, and with a narrative that's never really explained to satisfaction. The world of Push is populated by a variety of characters with various paranormal talents. There are Pushers---who can push thoughts on to other people; there are Sniffers---who can track people's scents from halfway across the globe; there are Watchers---who can foresee the future; there are Movers---who can, yes, move stuff with their mind...and a variety of other character-types that succeed in creating a fertile backdrop for what could have been a solid action movie. While some scenes do evoke a thrill, most are flat or downright silly. One battle has a clever premise in which two Movers square off in a restaurant. Using their minds, they both levitate pistols as they seek out and try to shoot each other. It's a cool idea, but seeing handguns float in the air reminded me of the special effects in Memoirs of an Invisible Man. It's hard not to laugh. The acting in Push isn't bad---Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning have solid rapport---but they're not given much to work with. Push isn't quite as bad as some critics made it out to be, but it definitely fails to deliver on its immense potential.

Rating: 5/10

Friday Night Video

2010-02-05T23:13:00.002-05:00

A little over a week ago, at the same Haiti benefit concert where I had the good fortune to discover last week's Friday Night Video performer (Freelance Whales), Eugene Mirman, the very funny emcee for the evening, surprised the audience with an announcement of a very special guest...Neil Young! Out walked Young, donning his usual duds, his hat pulled down low. He grabbed a stool and started playing.

That, of course, was not Neil Young...but rather Jimmy Fallon doing a dead-on impression of what Will Smith's "The Prince of Bel Air" might sound like if Neil Young got a hold of it. Here's a second video of that performance---abbreviated, but a bit closer to the stage.

Evidently, the Neil Young character Fallon is doing these days is not a one-song gag. He's also performed a Neil Young version of "Pants on the Ground." Fallon was definitely one of the many highlights of the benefit show I attended. CLEARLY.

Trailer Tuesday

2010-02-03T16:47:00.003-05:00

This is a day late, for which I will gladly blame the 2-hour premiere of Lost. You would think I might make it up to you by both a) showing you a good movie trailer, and b) writing a fresh and witty premable to it. You get neither. What you get is a crappy trailer with a crappier introduction from guest blogger Scott Schlossberg. Take it down and away, Scott...
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Repo Men imagines a not-too-distant future where artificial replacements are available for your failing organs, at grossly inflated prices. But if you miss a payment, the company sends Jude Law and Forest Whitaker to take back the organ. And none too gently. When Law’s character has to have an artificial heart installed and becomes a target for the repo men, wacky hijinks ensue.

It’s a clever premise. Insurance companies already cut off cancer patients in the middle of chemotherapy. It’s not a huge stretch to imagine companies killing people outright for not keeping up with the payments. But clever premises don’t always make good movies (just see District 9…Best picture? Really? Bleh.).
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Ed Note: Scott, you blew it. If anyone else wants to audition for the role of guest blogger, do let me know...but please, please...bring more to the table than Scott.

Movie Roundup: (1) Semi-Pro & (2) Avatar

2010-02-01T21:34:00.006-05:00

One of the things I'd planned to do with this blog in 2010 was to resume tracking all the movies I watched, both in theaters and on DVD, and to give little mini-reviews of them. Needless to say, that's not yet happened. As luck would have it, however, I saw fewer movies in the month of January than perhaps in any other month of my life---save for the month of Jewish summer camp in which the ONE movie night consisted of the classic If You Could See What I Hear...starring the Beastmaster himself, Marc Singer. Sadly, I couldn't even count that movie as I'd already seen it at least three times prior to that muggy night in Bruceville, Texas. The point is that, even though January has come and gone without a movie review, it's not too late to catch up...and the catching up begins right now.

Movie #1: Semi-Pro (2008---on DVD)

Being a Will Ferrell movie there are certainly a fair number of laughs to be had in Semi-Pro, but the final product is under-written and one that rather transparently expected to succeed on the basis of its principal star (which it almost does). The premise is solid, and setting it in the old ABA in the blue collar town of Flint, Michigan is one that could have yielded a few meaningful scenes, especially in light of how economically depressed Flint would become in later years---but this background is completely ignored. The team could have been playing in any small city in America. Flint is not a character, and that's a mistake. Outside of Ferrell doing his best with weak material, the rest of the cast is mostly unfunny. Semi-Pro isn't a "bad" movie, it's just a lazy comedy...one that knows it can make you laugh simply by putting Ferrell in front of the camera with an afro-wig on. That pisses me off. But I still laughed. And that pisses me off more.

Rating: 6/10

Movie #2: Avatar (2009---in theatre)

The all-time top grossing film (if not adjusted for inflation) is one that, like Cameron's previous blockbuster, Titanic, has generated a wide range of opinions. I saw it with my friend Brian in 3-D IMAX and we emerged from the film with two very different takes. While I was not willing to bestow upon it the lofty accolades so many critics had readily done, I did find it an entertaining ride that was, at times, thrilling, moving and eye-popping. Brian, on the other hand, gave it a 1/2 star review and faulted practically every aspect of the movie. In the month since I've seen it, it has certainly diminished in my eyes somewhat. It's too long. The villain is too over-the-top. It's awkward in its racial allegory. And, despite the outrageous hype about the digital animation, these are still quite clearly fake creatures created on a computer. But strip away the hype, the controversies, and the ridiculous post-movie stories about people being depressed they're not living on the planet of Pandora, and what you're left with is an entertaining, albeit flawed flick. No need to over think it. It doesn't deserve all the money it's made, and it won't deserve all the Oscar attention it's likely to get tomorrow morning, but that's no reason to backlash against it. It is what it is.

Rating: 7/10

Freelance Whales

2010-01-31T23:30:00.003-05:00

Following up on the Friday Night Video post, I bought the album "Weathervanes" from Freelance Whales and have been listening to it on an endless loop this weekend. I can't say enough about it. It's sort of exciting to discover a band you have a feeling is going to be something big one day...and that's exactly what I think is in store for these guys. I had two live versions of their songs on Friday, but let me embed this one straight from the album. It's called "Starring" and it's a pitch-perfect emulation of Postal Service. This will be on a UPS commercial before too long.

Friday Night Video

2010-01-29T21:26:00.002-05:00

This weekly segment has tilted heavily towards Brooklyn-based acts of late, and who can blame me? There's little argument that Brooklyn is the epicenter of indie music---good, bad, original, derivative, precious, pretentious, and otherwise. All of it can be found in New York's most populous, most talent-laden borough. On Wednesday night I went to a Haiti benefit concert at The Bell House in Brooklyn, a fantastic venue which showcased a lengthy and diverse list of acts. I'll try and scratch out a review of that show this weekend, but there was one group which left an indelible impression upon me and scored themselves a coveted spot on the BHG Friday Night Video blog post...Freelance Whales.

Mark Steffen at Jonk Music wrote an excellent review of their debut album and I'll steal his opening paragraph:

"Freelance Whales are one of those bands that I'd like to dislike. They live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They do things like perform on Bedford Avenue to a crowd of hipsters. They note that they roll their own cigarettes. And they list the harmonium as an essential instrument. They include mathematical characters in their song titles. But I can't get myself over the delightful, heartbreaking fairytales that spew from their debut album, Weathervanes."

That's sort of how I felt by the time they finished their dynamic three-song set. Their cultivated uncultivated look screamed "annoying hipster," but who gives a fuck, really? These guys are the real deal. With eclectic, ethereal arrangements, there were hints of Arcade Fire and Polyphonic Spree, but really it was a beautiful sound, original in its composition and masterful in its production. I'm not especially good at writing about music, so let me have Mark Steffen drive this one home:

"The album settles comfortably in what people will refer to as "neo-folk" or "indie-pop-folk" or "post-everything," and none of these labels will come close to what Freelance Whales have given us. Supposedly the band name is both a description of the music and the band's lifestyle outside of music. And, for once, it's pretty perfect. These boys have a lot of talent in a lot of different areas. It's jittery, downplayed, catchy, dreamlike, and imperfect, but it's all presented in true New Yorker "freelance life" form."

I have two videos for you. The first is a live performance of them doing the song "Generator ^ Second Floor". Yes, that symbol in the title is intentional. And yes, there is also a song called "Generator ^ First Floor"...which happens to be the second video. In it, an abbreviated video, they perform the song in the Bedford Avenue subway station in Williamsburg. These guys are good. VERY good.

"You take a chip, you take a chip."

2010-01-28T15:18:00.003-05:00

I've done very, very little at work today. Some days I earn my paycheck, others I could be convicted of embezzlement. Today is the latter. How lazy have I been? Lazy enough to watch a bunch of Greg the Bunny clips on YouTube. The best character from that puppet parody show was easily Warren DeMontague, and there's no better clip of him than this.

I have been this guy.

Trailer Tuesday

2010-01-26T21:55:00.002-05:00

It's getting harder and harder to find a trailer that doesn't bore me to tears. I had to go all the way back for a trailer that was released to little fanfare back in November, but I'm glad I dug deep. As I've mentioned here on several occasions, Kicking and Screaming is my all-time favorite movie. Written and directed by Brooklyn-born Noah Baumbach at the age of 26, his debut film remains his best, most balanced, most engaging work to date. His more recent films have not been without success, however. He scored an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay for his 2005 movie The Squid and the Whale, and he's certainly deserving of another nomination this year as co-writer with Wes Anderson for the adaptation of Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Baumbach returns to the director's chair for his newest movie---Greenberg. Starring Ben Stiller in what, thankfully, appears to be a restrained role, the title character is "a dysfunctional 40-year-old at a crossroads in his life who wants to do nothing for awhile." They had me at dysfunctional. The preview is a bit difficult to get a handle on, but then so is most of what Baumbach writes. One thing you can expect is smart, witty dialogue...and some of that is on display here. There's also going to be a great soundtrack...and that, too, is key for this trailer. One interesting note to keep in mind while watching this is that Mark Ruffalo and Amy Adams were originally cast as the two leads. I like Stiller, and this Greta Gerwig seems good, too, but wow...Ruffalo and Adams seem better for this film, no? In any case, this is Greenberg...and is hopefully not me in four years.

Friday Night Video

2010-01-22T20:39:00.002-05:00

There's a reason Guitar Hero and Rock Band became so popular in the last two years...and that reason is this song. Or at least a handful of other songs just like it---the kind of song that makes you really wish you were looking out over a sea of people...their firsts pumping in unison with the power chords being belted out from your guitar. I don't think any other band, with the possible exception of The Who, has more songs that fit this bill than AC/DC. At their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler described their power chords as "the thunder from down under that gives you the second-most-powerful surge that can flow through your body." The first is cum. He's talking about cum.

Angus Young, while instantly recognizable for his kitschy schoolboy-uniform outfits and his charismatic duck walk, is also one hell of a guitar player, coming in at an undervalued #96 on Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Guitar Players of All Time. From "Back in Black" to "You Shook Me All Night Long" to "T.N.T.", Angus has gotten to duck walk his way through some of the best pure guitar rock songs in history. For my money, though, "Thunderstuck" is the most electrifying rock anthem of the last 20 years. The opening sizzles and never relents. I can't play a guitar worth a lick, but after being stuck on this song for the last few days, I think I just might add the special AC/DC Rock Band add-on. I would attempt to do the duck walk, but I live in a NYC apartment. I would get two steps and have to pivot back. That kind of kills the mood, you know? Anyway, this shit rocks.

Blog Love

2010-01-19T20:17:00.002-05:00

I really do intend to give this blog some more attention in the coming weeks, but let's get the ball rolling on that by giving some attention to another blog. As many of you already know, the inspiration (and look) for my own blog was largely a result of reading and commenting on my friend John Williams' blog---A Special Way of Being Afraid. While there are definite similarities (a little bit of sports, a little bit of movies, a little bit of politics, a little of this and a little of that), John's writing is typically more thoughtful and detailed than what you might find here. This should come as little surprise as John has made a living editing books, writing freelance articles, maintaining a separate blog about books, and also betting on horses...though I suspect that last source of income is more of a hindrance than a help.

Like me, John goes back and forth between allowing his real-world responsibilities to encroach on his routine blog updates, but he's come out firing on all cylinders in 2010. He's had several good posts this year, but the sequence of posts I've really been waiting for began earlier today. John, who has written many an excellent film review over at Pajiba.com, has elected to count down his 100 favorite films of all-time, a daunting task even if you don't give it the level of care and thought I'm certain he's put into this project. It's the kind of project I'd love to do for myself one day, but it's also one that, quite frankly, I just don't have the patience for. I'm not sure how one can rank and compare Broadcast News vs. Freebie and the Bean, but I'm pretty sure I might kill myself if I tried.

Still, over the last last few months when he announced his plans to create this list, John seems to have methodically reviewed a list encompassing almost every movie ever made. He admits an omission or two is possible, but you can be sure this list was not thrown together haphazardly. I encourage you all to check out his countdown (hint: Avatar will not be on his countdown). I, too, will be checking in on it and offering up my own two cents on his selections. If nothing else, I can tell my Netflix queue is going to have several new titles added in the coming weeks. His first five movies in the countdown are as follows:

100) Dressed to Kill
99) Airplane & Anchorman (he's already cheating!)
98) Broadway Danny Rose
97) Donnie Brasco
96) Hoop Dreams

Of these six films, I've seen four for sure...with Dressed to Kill and Broadway Danny Rose being the two movies I'm familiar with but not entirely sure I've "seen." I think Airplane is the only one from these six that would be on my own list, and I cringe at it getting equal billing with Anchorman, but the rest of the picks are solid selections. I always considered Donnie Brasco to be slightly overrated, and the initial impact of Hoop Dreams has faded in my memory, but if John says a film is this good, it probably means I should take a second look...and so should you.

Trailer Tuesday

2010-01-19T17:04:00.003-05:00

Saturday Night Live skits that have taken the leap to the big screen have often been hit (Wayne's World) or miss (A Night at the Roxbury), but they keeeeeep on coming. The latest entry to this decidedly mixed canon is MacGruber, the Will Forte-centric parody of the 80's action-adventure show MacGyver. I've never been a "fan" of this sketch as it's always seemed like a one-joke, one-note gimmick...funny the first time, then less and less funny with each successive appearance of the character. That said, this brand new red-band trailer shows some promise. Not everything in the trailer works, but there's more than a few laugh-out-loud moments here...so, maybe? It also co-stars Kristen Wiig and that's never a bad thing.

Friday Night Video

2010-01-15T17:04:00.002-05:00

Plushgun is a Brooklyn-based synth band I discovered on MySpace about two years ago that I became immediately hooked on. Their most well known song, the catchy, singable, dangerously close to too-cute "Just Impolite", has been featured in some MTV shows here and there, and it's also on the just-released trailer for a new movie called The Good Guy. While there's no official video for "Just Impolite," The Office's Rainn Wilson decided to do his own. In it, he beats up photographer Tyler Shields in slow motion for the duration of the song. It's committed acting.

Trailer Tuesday

2010-01-12T22:26:00.002-05:00

When I said this blog would be getting more of my attention in 2010, I meant it. At the moment, I'm giving it lots of attention by being passive-aggressive with it.

I should also point out that I've begun to focus more on Twitter in the last few months, trying to find a voice on there that allows me to overcome my general disdain for the medium while still getting the benefit of using it. I think it's going well, actually, so if you follow this blog, go ahead and follow me on Twitter, too. You can always see my updates on the right side of this page, but I'd encourage you to take the extra step and sign up for an actual account. You'll be not unhappy you did.

But today is Tuesday, and that means Trailer Tuesday. I won't always be posting trailers for movies I think look good. And hey, guess what? That's the case this week! Sucks to be you. Earlier this week the trailer for The A-Team leaked to the internet. While it's been pulled from most sites like YouTube, low-res versions are still available for your viewing pain. The film actually looks a hell of a lot slicker than I expected, but given that the director is Joe Carnahan (Smokin' Aces, Narc), I shouldn't be too shocked. In fact, if the trailer had been one without any dialogue or acting, I might even have been intrigued. Sadly, there's dialogue. There's catch phrases. And there's a conversion van which just doesn't look cool in 2010, even allowing for retro charm.

Friday Night Video

2010-01-09T14:22:00.003-05:00

Programming Note: Due to a lack of inspiration and an increasing disapproval of mediocrity, there will be no Friday Night Video this week. Also, speaking of mediocrity, go Cowboys.

Trailer Tuesday

2010-01-05T20:44:00.002-05:00

It's the first Tuesday of the New Year and that gives me the chance to roll out a new weekly feature...Trailer Tuesday. Every Tuesday I will post a movie trailer for an upcoming movie. Why? Because it's easy and everyone loves movie trailers. But mostly because it's easy. I like easy. I can do easy. I will, however, attempt from time to time to spotlight upcoming movies you may not be overly familiar with, and that's the case this week.

Today's trailer is for a "horror" movie called Frozen. The simple, mostly absurd premise, is that three kids get stranded on a ski lift chair in mid-air. Nobody knows it and the slope is now closed until the next weekend. Could it happen? Eh, probably not. But if you suspend your disbelief just enough, this is a rather unnerving preview. It's like the winter version of the movie Open Water (Dianna---you should probably skip this trailer). I'm only glad I don't ski...

Friday Night Video

2010-01-01T23:45:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year, everyone! I'll spare you all a lengthy list of resolutions except to say that this blog will be getting a lot more of my attention in 2010. In addition to more regular weekly features, you can count on a steady stream of original posts, reviews, links, and the usual assortment of curiosities. But for this first post of 2010, we have to go back to 2009...

SPIN magazine recently ranked their 20 best videos of 2009 and it's a mixed bag to say the least. The number one video, however, is definitely a hypnotic combination of attitude and guts. Matt & Kim is a Brooklyn-based indie duo who released their second album, Grand, in January 2009. You may be familiar with the most successful song off that album, the poppy and oh-so-catchy Daylight...which was also featured in commercials for The Sims 3 and Bacardi (hey, gotta make a living somehow). One of the other singles off that album is called Lessons Learned, and for that video Matt & Kim stroll through Times Square in February---slowly peeling off layers of their clothing until fully naked. While some of the shocked spectators are actors, most of the video is completely authentic...right down to them being violently tackled by NYPD's finest. It's sort of mesmerizing.

Yes, please.

2009-12-31T01:39:00.002-05:00

Christopher Nolan writing and directing with Leo and Joseph Gordon-Levitt starring? Want.

Resist! Resist! Resist!

2009-12-28T15:33:00.002-05:00

It turns out that I am not alone. As you may recall from this previous blog posting, back in October I was fined $50 by the NYPD for taking up more than one seat on an empty train late at night. That provoked a justifiably belligerent response from me and, to date, I have not paid this fine. Inevitably this will lead to an arrest warrant similar to the one I have in Texas, but until I'm wanted in three states simultaneously, I do not plan to stop causing trouble. But back to the main point which is a story that appeared on Gawker yesterday afternoon. Citing this NY Post story, it seems the crackdown on "space hogs" is in full effect. The NYPD denies it and claims the number of citations in 2009 is only slightly higher than in 2008. Even so, the account given in the story is eerily similar to the bullshit story I got, namely the part in which, "The officer said it was a danger because people can get robbed on the subway if they fall asleep." Argh! Stupidest reasoning in the history of reason!

Friday Night Video

2009-12-25T13:47:00.002-05:00

Today we go back, way back...44 years back in time to 1965. Simon & Garfunkel are uniformly awesome and require no explanation. I will say, however, that this song was chosen because its lyrics sort of perfectly match the December mood outside my window. I am not a rock, however. I'm a happy dude for a change, but I still like a moody woe-is-me song and this one fits the bill. For you miserable, lonely sons of bitches, this is for you.

A winter's day
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Cosby Porn

2009-12-23T22:09:00.004-05:00

Remember the good old days of porn when pornos had story, substance, character development, and more than one kind of dramatic climax? Me either, but the porn industry used to at least try and have a flimsy plot around which its characters could find a reason to have sex (sort of like real life). In the last 10 years or so, however, porn producers discovered that the main consumer of porn (MEN!) didn't really need a plot with their porn. In fact, the plot usually just got in the way and caused men to burn out the fast-forward button on their remotes. As a result, especially in the golden age of digital internet porn, the trend in the industry (so I've been told) has been toward cheaper, easier-to-produce vignettes. Minimal to no story---just sex, sex, sex. It's a little sad (but just a little).

Every now and then the industry will put forth an extraordinary effort to try and grab some mainstream attention, as was the case with the 2005 movie Pirates, reported to be the most expensive porn film ever made with a budget just north of a million dollars. I rather like what The New York Times had to say about it: "A relatively high-budget story of a group of ragtag sailors who go searching for a crew of evil pirates who have a plan for world domination. Also, many of the characters in the movie have sex with one another." Wanna know how you can tell it's a legit movie? The sequel came in at 2 hours and 18 minutes...making it like every other self-important, over-bloated sequel in history. Even so, herculean efforts like Pirates are few and far between. Recently, however, one film company has begun a new trend in the industry and, well, it's kind of awesome.

Porn parodies are not a new trend and have been around forever. We all remember Edward Penishands, yes? Good. But the most recent trend is towards parodies of classic television sitcoms, including The Brady Bunch, Three's Company, and The Cosby Show. Again, this alone is not that remarkable, but what is remarkable is how funny these parodies appear to be. Great care has obviously been taken with the script, with the casting, the set design, the costuming, and even with the camera movements...all carefully done to mimic the show's style. And if you think I'm exaggerating, take a look at the trailer for Not The Cosby Show XXX.

You don't see any sex in that YouTube-safe version, but trust me, this is a hardcore porn film. You can check out the not-safe-for-work version here. It's fucking genius, right? There's also parodies of Friends and Scrubs, and then there's this dead-on parody of The Office:

And the parodies keep coming and coming. Like this great one for 30 Rock:

Amazing.

Iron Man 2

2009-12-20T13:55:00.001-05:00

Trailers rarely get me jazzed anymore, but this one sure did:

Friday Night Video

2009-12-19T15:22:00.002-05:00

You ever had a drunken conversation at a bar where you're trying to get someone else to figure out what song is in your head---except you don't know the name of the song, the name of the band, or much more beyond a few key notes? This video answers that question from Thursday night. Jonathan, this song is dedicated to you.

King Ding Takes it Like a Pro

2009-12-17T00:34:00.002-05:00

Tonight I saw the Rifftrax crew do a live, broadcast-to-theaters holiday extravaganza riff. For those not familiar with Rifftrax, it's the same guys who did Mystery Science Theater 3K back in the day. And for those not familiar with MST3K, you can check out a few of their recently-added episodes on Hulu.com. Basically it's three very smart, very funny guys who make fun of movies, commercials and short films.

There was much to laugh at tonight, but perhaps two of the oddest oddities among many tonight, were the following two commercials. These are actual products, mind you. It sort of makes me wonder when the world at large became aware of homoerotic overtones...because it certainly wasn't back when they made these. I give you the Dingalings, and Gaylord the Robotic Pup.

Friday Night Video

2009-12-13T11:27:00.003-05:00

If you close your eyes and think back to like two days ago, this post is right on time. I couldn't post because I was too busy dancing, spilling beer on people, getting into fights, and asking if one girl needed help with some creepy guy who was following her around...who turned out to be her boyfriend of six years. You Met people left too early, clearly.

Today I have not one, but TWO videos for you. The first is the original version of Heartbeats by The Knife...an infectious song if ever there was one. Now, while I don't typically enjoy covers, Jose Gonzalez made an acoustic version of Heartbeats which is exactly the kind of cover I DO like. It maintains the original song's integrity while simultaneously exposing some of its more beautiful, buried undercurrents. Enjoy.

You know it's a bad night at trivia when...

2009-12-09T23:19:00.002-05:00

...the only question you feel really good about answering is one that deals with Jim Carrey. Alright, I answered more than just that one...but not many more. It was a disastrous second-to-last-place finish and about the best thing I can say for the evening is that I barely fought with Morgan at all. Except I like fighting with Morgan, so even that modicum of joy was stolen from me.

The Jim Carrey question is this: There were three sequels made to movies in which Jim Carrey starred in the original but declined participation in the follow-up. Name the three sequels.

(answer in the comments section)

It Lives!

2009-12-08T18:02:00.003-05:00

If you're a regular reader of this blog (sad) you know I've closely followed the development of the baseball-themed movie Moneyball...based on the acclaimed Michael Lewis book (author of the recently adapted sleeper hit The Blind Side). I got to spy Lewis and his wife, former MTV Vee-Jay Tabitha Soren, at the party premiere for The Blind Side last month (thanks, Rich). THAT'S how closely I follow this story. I stalked Tabitha and her daughter at the ESPN Sportszone in Times Square in hopes of learning more about the future of Moneyball, but I learned nothing from the experience beyond the fact that neither of them can shoot toy guns worth a damn.

It's been a rocky road for this bizarre project as you can read about here and here, but the big news this week is that it's back on! Yes, just six months after Sony Pictures halted production on the Steven Soderbergh project at the proverbial eleventh hour, the studio has rewritten the script and found themselves a new director. Given that the most recent incarnation of the project was heavily influenced by Soderbergh and his numerous rewrites of the original script from Steven Zaillian, one would have expected Sony Pictures to redo the project with a much more mainstream approach. While that's probably true to some extent, I can find little fault with hiring Aaron Sorkin to do the rewrite and then hiring Bennett Miller to be the new director. Miller was the Oscar-nominated director behind Capote (2005), and Sorkin is pretty much the greatest TV/film writer of our generation.

Many questions still remain about Moneyball...not the least of which is how good will it be, but between Zaillian, Sorkin, Soderburgh, Miller and Brad Pitt, you have one of the more intriguing creative pastiches in recent memory. I'm tentatively thrilled with these developments. Stay tuned...

1,547 Miles

2009-12-08T17:26:00.011-05:00

Lots to post in the coming days now that things are easing up a bit for me, but let's get it started with formal notice that I'll be coming back to Dallas to ring in the New Year. I'll be arriving on Tuesday, December 29th and returning to New York City the following Tuesday, January 5th. I currently have an arrest warrant out for me in Dallas (bring it, pigs!), so rather than do my usual "drive without a legal license" thing that I typically do when home, I think it best I rely on the kindness of strangers this time.

So, if you live in Dallas and you have a car, I'm looking at you. That means you, Brian. And you, too, sister Susan. And probably a few other people I don't really care to see, but if it means getting me from point A to point B and then drunkenly off to point C before being safely returned to point A...fine. There's always point D, of course, but that's a mistake for both of us. Anyway, if you're in Dallas and want to buy me a drink or seven, let me know.

Friday Night Video

2009-12-04T19:48:00.002-05:00

Not much time for commentary tonight as I'm about 10 minutes away from beginning an overnight shift at the museum. The new Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg movie is filming here (The Other Guys) so I'll be with that until 9am tomorrow. What you will get, however, is another great track off of Phoenix's most recent album...this one Lisztomania. The video is a fan-made mash-up to several movies of the Brat Pack. Enjoy.

Bears Riding Horses

2009-12-03T23:00:00.002-05:00

This post was originally going to be about a subway ad I saw tonight which featured a pair of horses in Iceland, but instead I found this picture which is far better than anything I'd planned on writing. Yes, yes---true of most things, I know. Very funny, you snarky, self-hating voice in my head.

You Betcha!

2009-11-29T10:47:00.004-05:00

If it's Sunday, it must be time for football picks. Thursday's early games saw me go 1-2, but thanks to a $20 bonus I earned because I bet on all three Thanksgiving games (thanks, Bodog!), I actually ended up even---or, more accurately, down $0.95. Close enough. I'm not loving most of the other lines this week, but here you go....sans commentary.

1) Indianapolis (-3.5) vs. Houston: Houston

2) Cleveland (+14) vs. Cincinnati: Cincinnati

3) Washington (+10) vs. Philadelphia: Philadelphia

4) Miami (-3.5) vs. Buffalo: Miami

5) Seattle (-4) vs. St. Louis: Seattle

6) Tampa (+13) vs. Atlanta: Atlanta

7) Carolina (+3) vs. NY Jets: Carolina

8) Jacksonville (+3.5) vs. San Francisco: San Francisco

9) Kansas City (+14) vs. San Diego: Kansas City

10) Chicago (+11) vs. Minnesota: Minnesota

11) Arizona (+3) vs. Tennessee: Arizona

12) Pittsburgh (+8) vs. Baltimore: Baltimore

13) New England (+3) vs. New Orleans: New England

Mortal Locks:

1) Oakland (+14) LOSS
2) Green Bay (-13) WIN
3) Philadelphia (-10)

This Week's Bets:

1) Green Bay: $20 to win $19.05 (WIN)
2) Oakland: $20 to win $16.67 (LOSS)
3) NY Giants: $20 to win $21.00 (LOSS)
4) Philadelphia: $30 to win $28.57
5) Seattle: $25 to win $21.74
6) Minnesota: $20 to win $18.18
7) Houston: $15 to win $12.50
8) San Fran: $15 to win $15.75

Tweet.

2009-11-27T16:18:00.004-05:00

This is probably not the best way to promote your local news anchor team:

Friday Night Video

2009-11-27T12:19:00.003-05:00

You don't really see old school stadium concerts anymore---at least not on the scale that Queen did back in 1986 with their Magic Tour, a 26-gig tour of Europe's stadiums which drew over 1,000,000 people. Insane. As it turned out, the Magic Tour would be Queen's last tour with lead singer Freddie Mercury. He was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987 and died in 1991. It takes a big voice and big personality to play to a packed stadium like Wembley, and there may not have been a bigger personality than Mercury. The following video begins with Freddie doing a fascinating bit of call and response with the audience, followed by the familiar opening notes of Under Pressure...notes which even Vanilla Ice couldn't totally destroy. This is our last dance...

You Betcha! (early edition)

2009-11-26T10:24:00.003-05:00

With a 7-8-1 record, last week was a respectable return to mediocrity. Coming on the heels of the 3-11-1 debacle that drained all of my previous winnings, I'll take it...especially since I bet big on just a small number of games I liked. The end result was $$$. There's a whopping three Thanksgiving Day games today, so let's get those knocked out first. The rest of the week's picks will appear this weekend.

Last Week:

Against the Spread: 7-8-1
Mortal Locks: 2-1
Net Profit: $30.00

Overall Totals:

Against the Spread: 74-67-3 (.525)
Mortal Locks: 18-12 (.600)
Net Profit: $1.12

Week 12 (road teams are always listed first)

1) Green Bay (-13) vs. Detroit

Detroit had a thrilling come-from-behind win last week as rookie QB Matt Stafford tossed his fifth TD with no time left on the clock. But that was last week. This week Stafford is likely out due to a shoulder injury, their top WR Calvin Johnson is also probably out, and the Packers are most definitely not the Brown. If Brady Quinn could light up the Lions for 37 points, there's no telling what sort of damage Aaron Rodgers can do...especially now that he's clicking with Greg Jennings and now that TE Jermichael Finley is back from injury. Take the Packers to cover.

2) Oakland (+14) vs. Dallas

I've been wrong every single week when it comes to the Cowboys---alternating between giving them too much credit and not enough. This week I have a hunch their offense could be ready to break out of their doldrums, but the Raiders are one of those tricky teams to predict of late. With JaMarcus Russell finally benched, Bruce Gradowski led the Raiders to a stunning upset of the Bengals last week. I'm not predicting a win for Oakland, but two TDs sure seems like an awfully big spread for an offense that's only scored one TD in each of the last two weeks. Take Oakland.

3) NY Giants (-7) vs. Denver

After winning their first six games, Denver has now lost four in a row...and this week will make it five. Both the Giants and Broncos got off to quick starts, but the Giants are the more legit team here...even if just barely. Eli Manning finally looked sharp last week, shredding the Atlanta defense for three TDs and nearly 400 yards. Things won't be quite so easy for him in Denver, but the inept Denver offense should make that shaky Giant defense seem sturdier than the one which gave up 31 points last week. Take the Giants to win by more than a TD.

Because my sports book has a promo this week, one in which I get $20 if I bet $20 on all three Thanksgiving games, I'm rolling out bets on all of the above games:

1) Detroit: $20 to win $19.05
2) Oakland: $20 to win $16.67
3) NY Giants: $20 to win $21.00

Mortal Lock:

1) Oakland (+14)
2) Detroit (+13)
3) Tk

Happy Thanksgiving!

You Betcha!

2009-11-22T11:22:00.002-05:00

Last week was not only ego-busting, but wallet-busting, too. Everything that could go wrong...did, and almost every bet that could be lost...was lost. The numbers below speak for themselves. Warning: Not for young children, the squeamish, or the faint of heart.

Last Week:

Against the Spread: 3-11-1
Mortal Locks: 0-3
Net Profit: $-181.30

Overall Totals:

Against the Spread: 67-59-2 (.571)
Mortal Locks: 16-11 (.667)
Net Profit: $28.88

Week 11 (road teams are always listed first)

1) Cleveland (+3.5) vs. Detroit: Detroit

2) Buffalo (+9) vs. Jacksonville: Buffalo

3) Pittsburgh (-11) vs. Kansas City: Kansas City

4) Indianapolis (-2.5) vs. Baltimore: Indianapolis

5) Atlanta (+7) vs. NY Giants: NY Giants

6) San Francisco (+6) vs. Green Bay: Green Bay

7) Seattle (+11) vs. Minnesota: Seattle

8) Washington (+11) vs. Dallas: Dallas

9) New Orleans (-11) vs. Tampa Bay: New Orleans
10) Arizona (-9) vs. St. Louis: Arizona

11) NY Jets (+11) vs. New England: New England

12) Cincinnati (-10) vs. Oakland: Cincinnati

13) San Diego (-7) vs. Denver: San Diego
14) Philadelphia (-3) vs. Chicago: Philadelphia

15) Tennessee (+4) vs. Houston: Tennessee

16) Miami (+3) vs. Carolina: Carolina

Mortal Lock #1: San Diego
Mortal Lock #2: Philadelphia
Mortal Lock #3: NY Giants

Bets:

1) San Diego: $30 to win $30
2) Philly: $30 to win $25
3) NY Giants: $20 to win $17.39
4) SD, NYG, Philly, Detroit: $5 to win $61.92

Friday Night Video

2009-11-21T15:16:00.003-05:00

First time in a long time I've been late with this segment...and I don't even have a valid excuse. I was home doing a lot of nothing. Well, technically, I was watching Bruno on DVD, but that film does provide the inspiration for today's video selection.

If you've seen Bruno, you might recall a hilariously disturbing segment in which parents are interviewed about their infant's abilities to withstand certain "peculiarities" of a music video Bruno wants to film. The parents are SO determined to have their babies become stars that they pretty much answer "yes" to every question posed, no matter how absurd the questions become. Questions like, "may we string your baby up on a crucifix?" and "how does your baby handle dead or dying animals?" and "is your baby okay with burning phosphorous" and "can you get your 30-pound baby to lose 10 pounds in a week?" It's the best part of the movie by far.

Anyway, if you think that that scenario is far-fetched, then perhaps you need to see the official music video for MGMT's Kids. While the song was a huge hit in 2008 (really, it's hard not to like it), the official video from Sony Music wasn't released until this summer...meaning many people, even fans, might've missed the video. If Bruno had been interviewing parents for THIS video, he might've asked questions like, "is your baby okay being fondled by monsters?" or "would it be okay if we permanently fucked up your baby and gave it eternal nightmares?" MGMT claims no children were harmed during the making of the video, but I'm not buying it. This baby is fucked. I mean, it's an interesting video and all...and the song is always fun to listen to, but somebody should check back in on this kid in 15 years. Seriously. And if the monsters didn't screw him up, having to watch MGMT in their aluminum get-ups most certainly did.

MGMT - Kids (Official Music Video) - The best video clips are right here