Wednesday, January 30, 2008 | by nathan

Well, Whatever It Is You’re Not Doing, Go Don’t Do It Somewhere Else

"Manos" The Hands of Fate is widely regarded as the single worst film ever made. By many Mystery Science Theater 3000 afficianados it is considered to be one of the single best pieces of source material in existence. For my money it wasn’t the best MST3K episode EVER - not as good as, say, Time Chasers or Jack Frost, it has more than its share of wonderful moments. The movie alone - without robotic commentary - is worth watching just for the laughs.

Anyway, it’s the featured article on Wikipedia today. You can imagine my girlish squeal when I saw that this morning. This is what happens when a bunch of El Paso fertilizer salesmen get together, get drunk, and make a movie on a bet. Also, it’s worth noting that Torgo has his own Wikipedia page.

Saturday, January 19, 2008 | by nathan

Cloverfield

About six months ago I saw this killer trailer for this awesome-looking monster movie. I’m sure you’ve seen it. I’ve been dying to see Cloverfield since before I knew what it was called, or who was in it. Fact is, I really like J.J. Abrams’ work to date, and Drew Goddard wrote the thing, and I love that guy’s work on Buffy, Angel and Lost.

So Brian had a brain-flash that we should make seeing this movie a date event. We had dinner at the Paseo Grill, then went to the theater.

The movie was fantastic. A lot of people are going to hate it. They’re going to cite the shaky, Blair-Witch-esque camera work and the fact that a muscly guy never jumps out, throws the monster down and beats its ass. Those people are missing some seriously key components of good storytelling.

What was not amazing? There were people in the theater who literally talked EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF THE MOVIE.

This makes me crazy.

Once, I was in a movie and the woman in the seat in front of me took a call on her cell phone. She talked, in her normal voice - not a whisper - for five full minutes. I kicked the back of her chair as hard as I could. People talking in movies makes me absolutely, completely crazed. I got an hour into the film before I realized I was biting down as hard as I could on the inside of my cheek, which is now swollen and was bloody all last night. I kept wanting to stand up and shout, at the top of my lungs, "SHUT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK UP!" Except, you know - restraint.

The second the film ended - I mean, in that instant between the fading out of the last shot and the start of the credits, some guy goes, as loud as he could, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU THINK, DUDE.

Here’s what’s interesting: apparently this is a widespread phenomenon. Wil Wheaton has blogged about how many people he knows have had their enjoyment of this specific movie ruined by movie-talkers.

I’m still pretty pissed about it; my anger is only really tempered by the fact that it was a really brilliant movie. As someone who suffers motion sickness I can understand why a person might not like it, but I’m planning on seeing it again, mid-afternoon on a weekday, and this time, I’m bringing my gun.

Thursday, September 20, 2007 | by nathan

Cutting A Rug With Evil Corp.

When I was a sophomore in college, two of my good friends took me to Ballroom Dance club. It wasn’t something I was particularly keen to do, but I must’ve been slow on the uptake thinking of an excuse, or perhaps I was drinkin’ that day. At any rate, I wound up in the basement of the student center without a partner, as my friends had neglected to tell me that I’d needed to find someone to ask.

So I was standing there in the corner, secretly excited about my chance to silently mock the other dancers, when a beautiful blond girl walked up and asked if I’d like to dance. I shrugged and said sure. We were learning the waltz that day, and though I must’ve stepped on that poor girl’s feet about a zillion times, she was graceful, kind and funny, and we had a genuinely good time. Though I never returned to Ballroom Dance club, when I’d see this girl around campus I’d say hello and crack a joke or two.

One day I was in the student center having lunch with a friend when the girl walked up and said hello. We exchanged pleasantries for a few seconds, and when she left I turned back to my friend; his eyes were wide, like dinner plates.

"Do you know who that was?" he asked.

I shrugged. "That’s just this girl I danced with at Ballroom Dance club."

"That’s Sam Walton’s granddaughter." 

"Huh."

**********

When I was 13 years old we lived in a cockroach-infested apartment only two blocks from what would later be my high school. Then, in December of 1993, my mom got a job as a staff pharmacist with Wal-Mart. It was largely due to this job that we were able to move into an honest-to-God house, the one mom still lives in to this day.

Mom rose in the ranks with the company to become a pharmacy manager at one of the busiest Wal-Mart Supercenters in America, and eventually became one of the most highly-paid pharmacists in the company. She ran a tight ship, made consistent profits for her store, and was generally very well-liked by most of the people she worked with.

I worked at Wal-Mart twice, in the summer of 1999 as a shelf stocker in another pharmacy (not mom’s), and again in 2002 as a cashier because I needed some quick cash before I raced off to Connecticut. Neither time was horrible, though I was always very, very glad to get to leave at the end of the summer, and I never did figure out how people who worked there full-time supported families or even drug habits.

Then, in November 2003 she was let go from her job. I won’t get into the details, except to say that the reasons they gave her were entirely fabricated, and it was essentially just a way of them getting out of paying her what would’ve been a major bonus for the year. Then, when she went to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, she was essentially told, "We can file a claim for wrongful termination, but it’s Wal-Mart. They can pretty much do what they want, and there’s nothing we can do."

We were all crushed. Financially and emotionally, our family felt washed-out and bereft. It was an awful time. Mom got a new job, which she enjoys thoroughly most of the time, and we all recovered.

**********

Last night Brian and I watched our latest Netflix entry, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. It was easily the most poorly sound-edited film I’ve ever seen, but other than that it was absolutely fascinating and enraging. It’s a perfect study in American capitalism at its worst, at people who honestly do believe that if they gave up a billion dollars of their own personal fortunes to assist those at the bottom rungs of society, the people who are holding on for dear life to support their families, that their lives would even be any different, much less worse.

Last month my audiobook was The Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fishman. I highly recommend you read - or listen to - it and immediately, immediately stop shopping there. I recommend you support your local grocers and local agriculture, like I’m trying to do, and maybe even pay a few cents more for stuff, knowing that you’re not helping finance the world’s ruin by saving those few pennies.

**********

Somewhere I read that the girl who taught me how to waltz is worth something like $20 billion. I can’t really say I hold a grudge against her personally; she was so gracious that I stepped on her feet so many times, but I really hope she’ll understand that I won’t be padding her trust fund from now on. I know her to be a believer, and I hope that at some point the Lord might help her - and the rest of her family - to willingly give a bit of that overlarge fortune to purchase decent healthcare for all their workers, and, if it’s not too much trouble, to write my mom a check for that bonus they cheated her out of. It’d help her out a lot.

Friday, July 27, 2007 | by nathan

The Simpsons Movie

Went to see The Simpsons Movie last night at midnight. Now. I know that it’s fashionable to talk about how the Simpsons isn’t as good a show as it once was, and how Family Guy and South Park have edged it out as the envelope-pushing animated sitcoms, but dammit, give me Homer any day. The thing that is unspoken in all the talk about the Simpsons’ decline is that it’s no longer novelty. The show was controversial and below-the-belt once, but American culture isn’t known for staying with things all that long. Hell, even I’ll agree that after 18 seasons, the show sometimes feels like it’s stretching to find new territory (Grampa and Selma falling in love? What was that?)

Still. The thing about the Simpsons that I love is that when an episode, a quip, or a sight gag is funny, it’s always funny. I laugh just as hard today at "Lisa The Vegetarian" as I did the first time I saw it. I can’t say that for Family Guy, whose cut-away gags and throwaway lines, which, while funny, are meant to surprise, to come out of left field and smack you in the face, and once you see them coming they lose their zing. Let’s not talk about how some of them go on WAY too long (okay, we get it. Peter fights the chicken. Episode running short, guys? What is that?) I can’t usually watch an episode of Family Guy more than once.

South Park is brilliant, but it tends to lose itself in social commentary, some of which doesn’t make sense. (Al Gore as a lisping drama queen proclaiming, "Oh my God, you guys, I’m so cereal" ? What was that?) 

I admit, I did worry, at first, about a Simpsons movie. I was worried they’d fall in to the South Park movie trap, to try to see how much "not-safe-for-TV" stuff they could cram into two hours. I do love the South Park movie, a lot, but the Simpsons is a different show, with a different humor, and it scared me to think they’d go for the cheap stuff.

Don’t get me wrong; there’s a fair bit of racy stuff here, but it’s not overdone, and it’s done well every time. I love that Marge gets the one serious curse word of the whole movie. I love the Austin-Powers-esque scene with naked Bart on the skateboard. Pretty much the whole first half hour is brilliant. Of course not all the peripheral characters get moments to themselves, because at this point there are hundreds of them. Most people get some good throwaway lines, but the family dynamic is center, and the humor is solid.

After 400 episodes and, now, a movie, I really do think this show is strong. Perhaps not as strong as it was, say, in the 1992-1998 era, but strong nonetheless. Despite the occasional controversy, The Simpsons has never been built on the idea that controversy equals humor; it’s just a patently funny show that isn’t novelty anymore. I’m looking forward to as many seasons as the producers are willing to create, and I couldn’t recommend the movie more highly. So, everyone, stop trying to sound cool by bashing the Simpsons and admit that you can do an "excellent" Mr. Burns and can quote Ralph Wiggum for hours. Go see it. 

Wednesday, July 11, 2007 | by nathan

“I Must Not Tell Lies.”

Laurie, Bri and I went downtown last night to catch Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at its midnight premiere. Literarily speaking I’ve dedicated the last week and a half of my life to a thorough re-read of the Harry Potter novels, just finishing the sixth one, The Half-Blood Prince, yesterday on my lunch break.

First of all, I have to say that if you think you’re too cool, or too literary, to be reading Harry Potter, you’re an arrogant burk who’s killed his inner child. There, I said it. 

I really thought nothing could beat Alfonso Cuaron’s adaptation of Prisoner of Azkaban, but this movie more than delivered. I was shocked to discover that this movie, while adapted from the longest book in the series, is the shortest yet of all the films, and yet somehow they did manage to get the entire emotional journey, as well as all the main points important to the overall plot of the series, into the film without things feeling too rushed. A little rushed, yes, but we’ve almost come to expect that by now.

This film swept me into its world more effectively than any of the others, to the degree that, when the tragic stuff started happening at the end - stuff I’ve known about since I first read the book 4 years ago - it took me completely by surprise and really shook me. Also, I love love LURVE Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix. I love her as anything.

It’s a summer fun film. It’s magic and whimsy and it’s also sad and touching. Go see it. 

Monday, July 9, 2007 | by nathan

“Sicko”

This past weekend, among other things, B and I went to see Sicko, the new documentary by Michael Moore. As with most of Michael Moore’s movies, I found my initial reaction to be outrage, and, well, sickness. My mom is a pharmacist, so I’ve long known that the healthcare system in America was deeply flawed and overpoliticized, but Moore has a way of bringing the suffering caused by these flaws to the forefront. I like the grassroots, populist tone of his films. I like that he went after Hillary Clinton in this movie.

But also, I know that Michael Moore is not without his flaws, and I have come to watching his films with an eye toward them. I do my best to recognize when he’s being manipulative, and I think I’ve gotten good at seeing when he’s perhaps not showing us the whole picture, like, in this film, when he goes through hospitals in Britain showing people having the most wonderful experiences and not having to pay a dime. I know from experience that the healthcare systems in Ireland (where I suffered a cold for three weeks because of a mold allergy) and Italy (where a quack doctor misdiagnosed me with the mumps) are not perfect, but I will say this: I didn’t have to pay, and the wait was not excruciating.

So, what I do with a Michael Moore film - really, any documentary, but especially his - is to keep my eyes open, and when I see something that is clearly not a trick - as with the C-SPAN testimony before the Senate of a woman who said she was paid large bonuses for turning down a man’s operation, causing his death - I don’t write it off because other parts of the film are a bit tricky. It seems, however, in the wake of Fahrenheit 9/11, that people are too quick to write him off, and that’s a shame, because the issue raised in this film really should go beyond politics.

The fact is, Americans have a horrible healthcare system. I speak as someone who currently has no insurance, and whose last insurance policy mandated I take my sick ass 30 miles to STUDENT HEALTH, where I could see a nurse for two minutes who would diagnose me with stress or an STD, or, if I was a girl, an eating disorder or pregnancy. And I had the honor of paying way too much for that. I also speak as someone whose much-needed visit to an allergy clinic last year was rejected by his insurance and who is now an extra $1100 in debt because he had the misfortune of having allergies that were causing him to get about an hour of sleep a night.

In a way I’m sad it was Michael Moore who made this film, and not some unknown or more well-respected filmmaker, because it might have a chance of being taken more seriously. But if you’re not one of those people determined to write him off - or, alternately, one of those people determined to brainlessly buy into everything he says - you should take your ass to see this movie, because it’s shocking, disappointing and sad to see that the quality of life of millions of Americans are for sale on Capitol Hill, and the only reason we don’t have universal healthcare is because a bunch of fat, rich, white guys were appalled that President Clinton put his wife - his WOMAN! - in charge of figuring out how to get that done. 

Thursday, June 28, 2007 | by nathan

We Should Do Guest Voices. We’d Be Awesome.

So I was clicking through Flickr today and came across a bunch of photos of people as Simpsons characters. Turns out the Simpsons Movie website has a fun little toy where you can make yourself into a character. And you know I can’t resist rendering myself in cartoonish glory. So, without further ado, Brian and me - and a bunch of other people! - Simpsified!

Monday, April 2, 2007 | by nathan

“You never know which STD you’re going to get…”

Okay, so Brian and I just wasted 30 minutes watching the end of Forrest Gump. I hate this movie. Truth be told, I hate almost any movie starring Tom Hanks - with the possible exception of A League of Their Own and Philadelphia, and especially anything starring Tom Hanks and having anything at all to do with Robert Zemeckis.

I never could put my finger on why, exactly, I hated this movie that so many other people seem to love. I mean, okay - it’s got more than its share of suck. Like the whole thing where he runs for 3 years? And especially the part with the yellow t-shirt? Come on, don’t tell me that wasn’t some old bullshit. It has something to do with the fact that I hate movies that seem set out from the beginning to make me cry, which Forrest Gump clearly was. 

Here’s what I realized tonight. Here’s what I hate about Forrest Gump:

Jenny.

We are given Jenny very early in the film, and from moment one until the end - when she dies of AIDS - oh, whoops, sorry: SPOILER ALERT - she’s just a big, rollocking, whoring-whore, sleeping with anything that moves, performing at one point in a nudie bar, snorting lines and lines of coke in a disco, leaving man after man, and especially our obsequious but more-or-less likable titular hero. Yes, okay, so I admit that Forrest as a character is likable, but Jenny? How in the hell are we supposed to believe that any man, even a man as stupid as Forrest, would spend his ENTIRE.LIFE putting up with her bullshit? I mean, really? And then to marry her at the end, after she reveals that, oh, by the way, I got pregnant by you - you know, before I ran off on you the last time, leaving you to spend three years running away from your own horrible depression - and I’ve been keeping this kid from you for four or five years, and now I have AIDS because I’m such a whore, but do you think you could marry me real quick before I up and die? Thanks, you’re a peach.

As far as I can tell, Jenny has not one single redeeming quality, and the fact that Forrest keeps on taking her back makes me hate him - and the movie that is named after him - even more. Just thinking about how I just spend 30 minutes of my life, which should’ve been spent writing my thesis, on watching this tripe makes me want to go punch Robert Zemeckis in the face.

Okay, so - comments are open. What movies drive you up the wall? 

Thursday, November 2, 2006 | by nathan

Normally I’d Say Wait For Rental, But It’s Not Even Worth That

Just a quick note:

Don’t go see Borat. It’s not funny. Like, not at ALL.

Complete, lame-ass waste of time. I’d be really mad if I had just paid to see it, which I didn’t. I got a ticket for a sneak preview. The good thing about tonight: I got to split a pizza with Jaye at Coach’s in Bricktown. That’s worth sitting seeing that crapwad of a movie. That’s worth sitting through a hundred screenings of it.

Monday, September 4, 2006 | by nathan

I’m Tired And It’s Hot, But…

I updated the Playlist page (formerly known as The Sounds, formerly known as This Month’s Music) to reflect the fact that summer is over and school has started.

Had a great Labor Day weekend, which I won’t go into, as it’s really warm in the house and I need to get to bed. I will say this: if you haven’t seen the movie An Inconvenient Truth, you need to go see it. No - you need to. Need. To go see it. An Inconvenient Truth. Just set your tiny little political opinions aside for a minute and go. If you go before noon at an AMC theater, the tickets are only $4. Just go. Right now.