Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Nicknames For Cheney That, If He Used Them In Public, Might Persuade Me To Vote For Bush (Though Probably Not)

Uncle Crusty

Grandpa Dick

Dick

Scooter

Flapjacks O'Callahan

That Mean Guy Who Lives Next Door And Won't Let Me Climb The Fence And Get My Ball Back, The Bastard

Dick "Let's Get Insaney" Cheney

C'mon Ride The Cheney

The Grizzled Old Prospector

Monday, July 19, 2004

A Depressingly Short (But Not Surprisingly So) List Of Most Of My Skills/Attributes

Useful Things I Can Do:
1. Change a flat tire.
2. Make a small variety of dishes (sandwich-based) to sustain myself.
3. Teach new words to small children.
4. Edit text for typographical/grammatical errors.
5. (I can't think of any more right now.)

Useful Things I Cannot Do:
1. Fix anything in a car besides that flat tire.
2. Successfully forage and survive in the wilderness.
3. Repair a computer or anything more technical than my toaster.
4. Commit to anything.
5. Build anything.
6. Climb anything.

Useless Things I Can Do:
1. Discourse on the mise-en-scene of a given piece of film.
a. Define "mise-en-scene."
2. Pick up objects (pens, underwear, anything up to 10-ish lbs.) with my toes.
3. Compare It Happened One Night with Spaceballs (although I know a guy who can do it much better than me).
4. Write every word to every song on Counting Crows' August and Everything After.
5. Back a car into a parking space.

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Review: "Spider-Man 2"

Starring Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Alfred Molina
Directed by Sam Raimi

3.5 stars (out of 4)

Spider-Man 2 may be the best superhero film to come along in a long while, thanks in no small part to the essential self-awareness and assumed glory permeating every frame. In a film of fantastic moments, conversations become catharsis, duels become redemptive and the characters seem somehow collectively drawn together by the cruel/kind hand of fate as the hero, the villain, the girl and the greatness are fused into one long orgiastic tribute to entertainment itself. Movies can save us, and the best ones also tell us we're worth saving.

As a sequel, everything works: artwork in the opening credits gives an abridged version of the first film, and before you know it we're back in the life of Peter Parker (Maguire), everyday college student and pizza delivery boy struggling to make rent and understand his love for Mary-Jane (Dunst). Fired from the pizza place and barely surviving on the fees he makes shooting Spidey photos for the Daily Bugle's J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons, here a comic character incarnate), Peter's falling behind at the university. Writing a paper on physicist Dr. Otto Octavius (Molina) gives Peter the chance to meet the doctor as well as witness a trial run on a new type of energy fusion that leaves a set of four mechanical arms grafted right onto soon-to-be-christened-Doc-Ock's body. Why would the good doctor go to such extraordinary lengths developing mechanical arms of frightening A.I. just to help along some fuzzily explained fusion project? My friend, you're at the wrong party; we're just here for the ride.

So the latest villain on Spider-Man's plate is now Doc Ock, who robs banks to finance an even bigger version of the fusion bomb that performed so terribly the first time. But, tired of always missing the opportunity to win M-J's heart, Peter packs in the Spidey suit in an attempt to live a normal life. He attends a play she's in, meets her for coffee, but to no avail: she couldn't wait forever, so she gets engaged to Jameson's son, John, an astronaut (too perfect).

Through a series of predictable but enjoyable events, Peter decides to re-don the red tights and take once more to the skyscrapers of NYC in the mission to stop Doc Ock.

Where the first film thrived on teases -- will Peter reveal his alter-ego to Mary-Jane? will best friend Harry (James Franco) discover Peter killed Harry's father, the Green Goblin? -- this film delivers on serious plot progression, rewarding audiences with complexly developing relationships between knockout fight sequences. Although the ending is requisitely left open for a third film (already scheduled for a summer 2007 release), viewers will enjoy watching tensions build as characters grow together and fall apart.

Director Sam Raimi (his oeuvre including the Evil Dead series) has easily surpassed the first film of the series: here the stakes are higher, the choices are tougher and the superheroing is a whole lot harder. Screenwriter Alvin Sargent (Ordinary People, Unfaithful) has created a fast-paced and only occasionally unbelievable (what protagonist really narrates out loud?) screenplay, working from a story by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Michael Chabon. Gough and Millar know a thing or two about superheroes in adolescent uncertainty, having co-created TV's Smallville, and Chabon is a modern novelist of the first order, the pen behind Wonder Boys and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, soon to be adapted to film itself.

It's that self-awareness that makes the film more than just another popcorn flick. It embraces the inherent cornball factor present in comics and runs full speed downfield, using skilled editing, effect-based transitions and more soft focus shots than are necessary to create a palpable feeling of almost transcendent joy. A grinning, galloping example of pure pop art, Spider-Man 2 knows exactly what it needs to do and gets it done with style to spare.

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Possible Campaign Slogans That Sound Like Songs That Could Be Used As Anthems, Proposed By Kerry And Subsequently/Wisely Rejected By Edwards

Kerry On My Wayward Son

Kerryin' the Banner

I'm Kerrying

River Kerry Me Home

Kerry Me Carrie

Kerrying Your Love With Me

Let's Get Kerried Away

Hope to Kerry On

Voices Kerry

Monday, July 05, 2004

Proposed Campaign Slogans, Bush-Cheney 2004:

Are you really going to listen to that Michael Moore douche bag?

Weapons of Mass Awesomeness

Now with improved spelling ability!

Because it's time for a theocracy.

A vote for Bush is a vote for national-wide togetherfication.

This time, we'll win for real. (Looking at you on this one, Florida.)

F*** Kerry.