A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

For Your Review - July 4-7, 2008

What's more patriotic than hot dog eating contests, lite beer, and traffic fatalities on the 4th of July? Why, movie reviews of course:

Hancock **1/2 - As odd a choice for a July 4 blockbuster as I can remember. It isn't horrible, but the twist that comes around midway through the movie derails most of what comes before. Smith is likable, as always, and Charlize Theron is hotter than donut grease. To coin a phrase.

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson ****1/2 - My only problem with this doc - from Alex Gibney, director of Taxi to the Dark Side and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room - is the short shrift given to HST's later work. All told however, this is a great movie, and loaded with great interviews and footage. It's playing at the Landmark River Oaks here in Houston, so check it out.

Christmas in July

Whoever said you shouldn't speak ill of the dead never met the former Senator from North Carolina:

Jesse Helms, the firebrand U.S. senator whose outspoken, conservative views polarized North Carolina and U.S. voters for decades, died at 1:15 a.m. Friday in Raleigh, according to John Dodd, president of the Jesse Helms Center.

He joins the second and third presidents of the United States - Thomas Jefferson and John Adams Jr. - who both also died on Independence Day.

He was 86. His cause of death was not released. Funeral arrangements will be forthcoming, Dodd said.

86? Sounds like the cause of death was "old." And nice of the Raleigh, NC paper to make that parallel between Helms and Jefferson and Adams. He also joins painter Bob Ross, Eva Gabor, and Barry White. So what?

His views on race relations - he opposed a national holiday honoring slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., led a filibuster against the extension of the Voting Rights Act and called some young blacks "Negro hoodlums" - and social issues sharply divided the public into those who viewed him as a champion of the common man and those who thought of him as a narrow-minded bigot.

David Broder, a widely respected political columnist for The Washington Post, called Helms "the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country."

"What is unique about Helms - and from my viewpoint, unforgivable - is his willingness to pick at the scab of the great wound of American history, the legacy of slavery and segregation, and to inflame racial resentment against African Americans," Broder wrote shortly after Helms announced that he wouldn't seek re-election in 2002.

Give Helms credit for sticking by his guns, at least. Wallace and others repented their pro-segregation stances later in life. Not good old Jesse.

Helms acknowledged his polarizing character, saying famed ventriloquist dummy Mortimer Snerd could run as the Democratic candidate for Senate against him and garner 45 percent of the vote.

"I wasn't interested in a popularity contest and surely didn't care about anything the big newspapers called me," he said. "I saw how they constantly ridiculed conservative ideas and conservative people."

Friend to women and minorities, champion of gay rights, and much, much more:

In his early years in office, Helms chaired the Senate Agriculture Committee, providing critical support for North Carolina's tobacco industry. When the Republicans gained control of Congress after the 1994 elections, he gained control of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he became a vocal critic of the former Soviet Union, China and Cuba and a strong advocate of anti-communist - and sometimes repressive - regimes in Latin America and Asia.

He also used his clout on the committee to push for reform of the United Nations, block payment of UN dues by the United States and oppose Democratic-sponsored foreign aid packages and trade deals. The recalcitrant stance he took on many issues garnered him the nickname "Senator No," which only delighted him. "The Raleigh News & Observer dubbed me 'Senator No.' It wasn't meant as a compliment, but I certainly took it as one. There was plenty to stand up and say no to during my first of five terms representing the people of North Carolina," he said.
[...]
Many political observers credit Helms' support for catapulting Reagan to the presidency in 1980 and accelerating the conservative agenda - cutting taxes at home, fighting communism abroad and opposing many government social programs - at the national level. He also served as Reagan's right flank for years, allowing the president to make political compromises as needed. "(I decided to) stay to the right of the president's right and make it easier for Reagan to be Reagan," Helms wrote in his memoir.

So long, Jesse. I don't believe in god, but for you I'll make an exception and hope she's a black lesbian. I also promise I won't bring up your collection of little shoes if you promise to say 'hi' to Nixon for me.

"When you can't tell your friends from your enemies it's time to go."

Now that 2008 is half over, the number of movies I'm actively looking forward to is dwindling rapidly. The Dark Knight is a given, though - in all honesty and for reasons I can't adequately explain - my expectations have lowered significantly. Then there's Hellboy 2 (really dug the first one), the return of the Coens in Burn After Reading, the adaptations of Greg Rucka's Whiteout and McCarthy's The Road, Milk, and that 6th movie about that Harry Potter fellow the kids are so into these days.

And let's not forget Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.

But the movie I'm probably looking forward to the most is the next James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. Here's the teaser:

QoS picks up an hour after the end of Casino Royale, as Bond goes after those responsible for Vesper's death. Jeffrey Wright is back as Felix Leiter, and new Bond girl Olga Kurylenko as a habit of getting agreeably naked, which - when combined with Craig's apparent disdain for shirts -means there's something for everyone.

Looks groovy, and I love the closing shot:

It opens November 7. See it with someone you're pretty sure won't betray you for money.

"Why should the race always be to the swift, or the Jumble to the quick-witted?"

The car chase is fast becoming an antiquated concept in movies, since it's a lot easier (and cheaper) just to use computers, resulting in the obviously fake (The Fast and the Furious), the ridiculous (Wanted), or a combination of the two (Speed Racer).

I'm not sure why I've never done a chase entry on APCB. It's probably because my list would look like every other top 10 out there. Without even thinking too hard (and in no particular order), I can come up with:

To Live and Die in L.A.
Ronin
Rendezvous
The Italian Job (original)
The French Connection
The Blues Brothers
The Bourne Supremacy (couldn't find the vid)

And of course, there's the one that prompted this entry in the first place: Bullitt:

I still love how the first three minutes are pure foreplay, with Steve McQueen and Bill Hickman playing cat and mouse before finally going balls out. It ain't pretty. There are sideswiped cars (and trucks) and scraped walls aplenty, but it's still the grandaddy of them all.

I've brought the movie up before, but the reason I'm revisiting it is this site, which tracks the chase in real-time on a map of San Francisco. It's interesting, for those of us not from the Bay Area, to see how the chase jumps around. And also to see how this, the first car chase shot on location (not in a studio backlot) and "at speed" may still never be topped.

Deutschbags

I don't know, man. Every time I tell myself I'm going to sit down and watch a football soccer game I enjoy it for about ten minutes, and then I can't get past what whiny little bitches they all are.

Case in point, ABC's playing the MLS match between Los Angeles and D.C. this morning before the Euro Cup final (sort of like the battle of the bands winner opening for the Rolling Stones). First off, after listening to the announcing crew talk for 20 minutes about the Galaxy's David Beckham and MLS goals leader Landon Donovan, I decided I was going to root fiercely for D.C. United. I have nothing against Donovan, except for his utter collapse in the last World Cup and his worsening habit of taking out his anger over advancing male pattern baldness on opposing players. It hasn't helped, D.C. was up 4-1 when I changed channels to...

The Euro 2008 final is on today. In news that should be no surprise to anyone who's heard me correct someone describing my surname as Dutch, I'll be pulling for Michael Ballack, Bastian Schweinsteiger (what a name) and Germany to pull it out.

UPDATE: Aaaand Spain's up 1-0 at the half. Loverly.

UPDATE 2: I'm junking any more pro-Spain comments.

Just kidding. Yeah, I was really taken with ESP's speed and accuracy throughout the match. I hate using the expression "they wanted it more," but they played with a lot more fire (and flopped with a lot more enthusiasm). Patrick's right, the best team won.

As promised

I mentioned She Who Shall Not Be Named's new nightshirt back when I bought it at the Iron Maiden show. Here's a pic:

Any parent who hasn't outfitted their spawn in a nylon bug costume during an 85-degree Halloween is welcome to comment.

For Your Review - June 27-29, 2008

A banner weekednd, in that I can enthusiastically recommend both wide releases (and mostly recommend one limited):

WALL-E ****1/2 - With Cars, Pixar proved it could make mistakes. With Ratatouille, they redeemed themselves admirably, though without reaching the heights set by Toy Story and The Incredibles. With WALL-E, they're back on top. I don't like using the word "delightful," because I never do, but this really is a treat.

>Wanted **** - I know, right? The trailer had my eyes rolling so loudly my daughter woke up. Three miles away. Two things work, though: director Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch) knows how to embrace the ridiculous, and James McAvoy sells his 'Peter Gibbons goes postal' persona. Angelina Jolie needs a pork chop, however. Or to stay pregnant.

Sex Galaxy ***1/2 - A couple years back, I reviewed Pervert!, the first release from Stag Films. This is their follow-up, the world's first "green" movie (made from 100% stock and newsreel footage). It's more uneven than their first, but still amusing. Not sure why I'm telling any of you, since it's only playing in L.A. and probably not for long. But there you go.

"You're such a Pollyanna, Egon."

Apparently Saturday morning cartoons still exist. And here I'd thought the advent of satellite TV and a 24-hour cartoon channel killed them off entirely, but no, I see the networks wheezing along with a handful of Spider-Man and Ninja Turtle toons scattered amongst the Hannah Montanas and Ravens. I don't really have any editorial comment to make, beyond the usual lamentations about not being able to sleep in until 11 like my parents because the offspring are zombifying in front of the TV.

And certainly, there was a lot of garbage on the tube back in the 70s and 80s, when I first learned you could watch TV for five hours straight and not go into convulsions. We can try to blame the hazy prism of nostalgia, but really there was no excuse for sitting through shit like Jabberjaw and Captain Caveman.

And yet I never actually watched The Real Ghosbusters when it originally aired. The 1984 movie is still one of my favorite comedies (and has the distinction of being the first VHS tape the Vonder Haar family ever purchased), but by 1986 Saturday mornings were all about either mowing the lawn or sleeping off the previous night's beer shotgunning contests. I got caught up with the show in college (my friend Shane had a thoroughly frightening assortment of recorded 80s programming), and this episode in particular stuck out. I couldn't believe I was watching a kid's cartoon about the Great Old Ones, but there you go (via MetaFilter).

"The Collect Call of Cathulhu[sic]"[1] was written by Michael Reaves and edited by J. Michael Straczynksi (one assumes the Ghostbusters' previous dealings with the supernatural boosted their SAN enough to properly deal with horrors from beyond space and time). I love it all: the Raiders style ending, "Alice" Derleth, no Slimer. The first season really was the best, though the whole run...reportedly...is coming to DVD this fall. And the new video game should be out for the Wii early next year.

I have a sudden urge to go shotgun a beer.

[1] Good old Chaosium, always ready with a lawsuit

"Don't confuse my point of view with cynicism. The real cynics are the ones who tell you that everything's gonna be all right."

I take some small comfort in the fact that George Carlin would most likely be laughing his ass off at all the heartfelt lamentation going on in the wake of his demise. The fact remains, however, that Carlin was - along with Steve Martin - the first stand-up comic I ever got into. One of the first shows I remember watching when we got HBO (that wasn't Beastmaster or one of those late night burlesque specials) was Carlin at Carnegie. Unlike Martin, Carlin's movie career was...spotty at best, but he was Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station, which blows away anything Martin has done since the first Bush administration.

Like most of my friends, I had memorized much of Carlin's oeuvre as a kid, from "Baseball vs. Football" to the "69 assholes tied in a knot" chant. In later years he was often accused of being more hectoring than funny, but I really thought some of his strongest and most incisive material came during that period.

It's a lousy feeling when all those artists and entertainers you admired in your youth start dying off. Fortunately for me, there were only a handful that affected me significantly and changed the way I look at things. Unfortunately, Carlin was one of them.

Anyway, here are some of my personal highlights.

The Seven Dirty Words

Life is Worth Losing

The table is tilted folks, the game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. Good, honest, hard-working people...white collar, blue collar, it doesn't matter what color shirt you have on...good, honest, hard-working people continue - these are people of modest means - continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don't give a fuck about them. They don't give a fuck about you, they don't care about you, at all[...]That's what the owners count on, the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red white and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes every day. Because the owners of this country know the truth: it's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.

Maybe my favorite of his recent ones, You Are All Diseased:

Question #1: Did you pack your bags yourself? No. Carrot Top packed my bags. He and Martha Stewart and Florence Henderson came over to the house last night, fixed me a lovely lobster Newburg, gave me a full body massage with sacred oils from India, performed a four-way around the world, and then they packed my bags. Next question.

Go fuck yourself, George. And I mean that in the most reverent way imaginable.

"Your balls itch?"

Bonus points to anyone who can tell me what '80s movie that pharmacist-delivered line is from.

Anyway, I guess it's a good thing these assholes weren't around when my friend Louden got crabs our junior year:

When DMC Pharmacy opens this summer on Route 50 in Chantilly, the shelves will be stocked with allergy remedies, pain relievers, antiseptic ointments and almost everything else sold in any drugstore. But anyone who wants condoms, birth control pills or the Plan B emergency contraceptive will be turned away.

That's because the drugstore, located in a typical shopping plaza featuring a Ruby Tuesday, a Papa John's and a Kmart, will be a "pro-life pharmacy" -- meaning, among other things, that it will eschew all contraceptives.

The pharmacy is one of a small but growing number of drugstores around the country that have become the latest front in a conflict pitting patients' rights against those of health-care workers who assert a "right of conscience" to refuse to provide care or products that they find objectionable.

It's a long article, filled with the usual bilge about how these noble beacons of moral supereminence are simply following the hallowed American tradition of "following their conscience." I'd encourage you to read the whole thing, but I'm just going to quote a few choice (har) bits:

The pharmacies are emerging at a time when a variety of health-care workers are refusing to perform medical procedures they find objectionable. Fertility doctors have refused to inseminate gay women. Ambulance drivers have refused to transport patients for abortions. Anesthesiologists have refused to assist in sterilizations.

Then fire them. I'm sure it varies, but aren't health care workers in a state-regulated system required to provide treatment when the prescription/diagnosis is legitimate? Take any of these homunculoids who refuse to provide the services they've been licensed for and shitcan them so they'll be free to preach their 17th century gibberish in whatever ratholes these people inhabit.

"This allows a pharmacist who does not wish to be involved in stopping a human life in any way to practice in a way that feels comfortable," said Karen Brauer, president of Pharmacists for Life International, which promotes a pharmacist's right to refuse to fill such prescriptions. The group's Web site lists seven pharmacies around the country that have signed a pledge to follow "pro-life" guidelines, but Brauer said there are many others.

I'm not linking the web site, but here's a list of the pharmacies:

- David's Pharmacy, Cartaya, David and Carmen RPhs - 2302 W Martin Luther King Blvd, Tampa, FL
- Andrew Eells, BSP, Greta Pharmacy, 1475 W Okeechobee Rd, Ste 5, Hialeah, FL
- Richmond Apothecary, Rokosz, David RPh 1626 East Main Street - Richmond, IN
- DuPlantis, Lloyd J, PD , Lloyd's Remedies, PO Box 1780, 3696 W Main St, Gray, LA
- Koelzer, Michael G, RPh Kay Pharmacy and Home Medical Equipment, 2178 Plainfield Rd NE, Grand Rapids, MI
- Superior Pharmacy, Lane L Hawley, RPh 348 N Central Ave, Superior, NE

Alternatives are probably easy to find in places like Tampa, Hialeah, and Grand Rapids. But tough shit for the woman who needs Plan B in Gray, LA (50 miles from New Orleans) or Superior, NE (75 miles from Lincoln). Or the out-of-towner who loses their birth control pills in Richmond, IN. And I guess it never occurs to these people that The Pill and other contraceptives are often prescribed for uses other than legitimizing those pagan orgies Bauer and her ilk see lurking behind every script for Ortho-Novum.

"We try to practice pharmacy in a way that we feel is best to help our community and promote healthy lifestyles," said Lloyd Duplantis, who owns Lloyd's Remedies in Gray, La., and is a deacon in his Catholic church. "After researching the science behind steroidal contraceptives, I decided they could hurt the woman and possibly hurt her unborn child. I decided to opt out."

Some critics question how such pharmacies justify carrying drugs, such as Viagra, for male reproductive issues, but not those for women.

Yeah.

This is the standard fallback, that these maladroits somehow care about women's issues in a way that those who dedicate their entire lives and careers to women's health somehow don't understand. It's beyond disingenuous: it's bullshit. Any pharmacist that refuses to fill legitimate prescriptions or stock contraceptives yet have no problem doling out boner pills has shown their true self: not a concerned practitioner bravely standing up for his individual rights, but rather a delusional misogynist whose attitude towards health care has more in common with Theodoric of York than any human being educated in the last 50 years.