A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

The Blurst of Times - 2005 Edition

I’m getting the jump on the annual best/worst of feature at Film Threat because I figured my paying subscribers ought to get a first shot at what I considered to be the crème de la crap of 2005. Unfortunately, since this year will go down as one of the most critically mauled in movie history, I was unable to limit my choices to a mere ten. Here, in no particular order, are the worst of the year. Enjoy.

Boogeyman – Sudden, loud noises designed to make you jump in your seat without actually scaring you, forgettable twenty-something “actors” (one from Seventh Heaven, the other currently starring in the thematically redundant Bones), and laughable CGI make for some immeasurably bad horror. But don’t let the lousy box office performance dissuade you, studios, keep churning out that PG-13 crap.

Diary of a Mad Black Woman – Say what you will, but at least those guys making the shitty Left Behind movies aren’t trying to disguise their Jesus-happy agenda. Of course, writer Tyler Perry doesn’t just remind us with nauseating frequency about God’s greatness, but also plays the other side of the coin with frequent sex and fart jokes. This schizophrenic “dramedy” is the worst of all possible worlds, and did we mention how really awesome God is?

Miss Congeniality 2 – Not to start unfounded rumors, but I hear the only reason Sandra Bullock married Jesse James is so he could rebuild her career. See, he’s the host of “Monster Garage” and…oh, never mind.

The worst part of this movie, of course, was the criminal underutilization of Shatner.

Kicking and Screaming – A prophetic title, as it describes the only fashion in which anyone should be taken to see this ham-handed and humorless piece of shit. I think this and the ill-advised Bewitched remake demonstrate that not only is the luster coming off of Will Ferrell, it's being peeled away in sheets by huge mechanical pincers.

Dark Water – Here’s a little heads-up to any other directors who are planning to remake a Japanese horror film: American audiences only think water is scary when there’s actually something in it. Ask Spielberg.

Must Love Dogs – No. No we mustn’t. I don’t blame Diane Lane. Mainstream success took its sweet time coming for her (though she won my heart as Ellen Aim in 1984’s Streets of Fire), and she can hardly be blamed for grabbing just about any leading role (and accompanying paycheck) thrust her way, as they come fewer and far between for women on the other side of 40 in Hollywood.

John Cusack, on the other hand, seems more in favor of sleepwalking through these romantic comedy (America’s Sweethearts, Serendipity)/Hollywood “suspense” flicks (Identity, Runaway Jury) than making his usual entertaining left field fare. I joke about a Tapeheads sequel, but I’d be just as happy with a movie not written by John Grisham or featuring a last minute scene where he’s rushing to be with his true love Before It’s Too Late.

The Dukes of Hazzard – The only good thing you can say about this is that it didn’t feature a cameo by Larry the Cable Guy, because that might’ve sent audiences with a cumulative IQ over 75 into a homicidal rampage that ended with the burning down of Cracker Barrels across our once proud nation.

Supercross – I have a great idea for a idea for a sports movie: a plucky young protagonist with oodles of talent and the burning desire to win claws his/her way up from obscurity, beats the odds, and ends up winning the big game and/or race while at the same time falling in love with that previously unobtainable attractive member of the opposite sex. Then, as they’re standing on the victory podium, a blind and uncaring god beyond our ability to comprehend casually drowns them in molten lava. Why? Because when you’ve made a film about supercross, it means sports movies are dead.

The Man – Farting nuns. That about sums it up.

Note: If there's farting nun porn out there, I don't want to know about it.

Chicken Little – When Disney apes DreamWorks by making temporal, trivial children’s entertainment, they become part of the self-fulfilling prophecy: kids don’t go see cartoon movies stuffed with nonsensical pop culture gags, contemporary pop music, and “wacky” characters because they’re stupid, they become stupid from being exposed to this kind of horseshit for years on end. Seriously, do you know how long it took me to get over latter era Hanna Barbera garbage like Jabberjaw and The Skatebirds?

The Ringer – We have met the retards, and they are the Farrelly brothers and everyone involved in making this movie. Please don’t buy the backpedaling the studio is doing to make it look like this is supposed to be some sort of empowerment film. It’s first and foremost a comedy, and there are absolutely no laughs. Katherine Heigl is smoking hot, however.

Aeon Flux – Charlize Theron was apparently worried that her credibility was getting a little too overwhelming after Monster and North Country. I’ve been asked, “Is it really that bad? Really?” Yes. Hey, sometimes the pre-release publicity is right.

Rent – Can we stop the Broadway adaptations for a while? Between this and The Producers, you’ve got the whole of “flyover country” wondering how anyone can be so stupid as to sit through these overblown productions in the first place, much less spend perfectly good crystal meth money on making movies out of them.

Elektra – An incoherent story, atrocious special effects, and acting that ranges from “crap” to “really crap.” The good news? Ben Affleck wasn’t in it.

Alone in the Dark – No “worst of” list would ever be complete without the inestimable Herr Doktor Uwe Boll. He doesn’t disappoint here, giving us not just one of the lousiest movies of 2005, but quite possible one of the worst of all time. Though it’s almost worth renting just to see alleged anthropologist Tara Reid mispronounce “Newfoundland.”

"I, state your name, do hereby swear allegiance to the frat."

A state representative is speaking up about the banning of a UT fraternity where a student died of alcohol poisoning:

A Houston lawmaker is urging University of Texas officials to reconsider last week's decision to ban an Asian American-interest fraternity whose members were involved in hazing the night freshman member Phanta "Jack" Phoummarath drank himself to death.

Rep. Hubert Vo wrote UT President Larry Faulkner last week that the university should consider alternative punishments such as probation, community service or alcohol abuse training for the members of Lambda Phi Epsilon, rather than canceling the registration of the entire group.

Group punishment, Vo said, is unfair and could send the wrong message to the Asian community by destroying an important social and support network for Asian students, many of whom are children of immigrants and first-generation college students.

Sorry Hubert, but UT’s tradition of disciplining wayward frats (and I realize Lambda Phi Epsilon isn’t an official "Greek" organization) goes far beyond your pesky concerns.

In 1986, Phi Kappa Psi pledge Mark Seeberger dies after consuming 20 oz. of rum in two hours during “a ride” where pledges are gotten drunk and dropped off to find their way home. Phi Kappa Psi was banned from UT for 4 years (which was a great relief to me, as it provided an easy out for when I informed my grandfather I wouldn’t be joining as his legacy).

Delta Tau Delta and Phi Gamma Delta (“Fiji”) were both suspended for a year following incidents during the 1990 Round-Up, displaying racial epithets on the Delta’s parade car, and a Fiji t-shirt that featured Sambo’s head on Michael Jordan’s body. Both fraternities were suspended for a year.

And these were just the incidents I remember from when I was there (a recent list can be found here). There was also the upper classman who got chased off Mt. Bonnell by some pledges. But if I remember it right, the fraternity in question claimed it wasn’t hazing because the pledges didn’t actually die. Or something. I didn’t get out much.

My reminiscences aside, I understand Vo’s need to speak up for his constituency, but I doubt he pursues this beyond a letter and a public statement. The events sound pretty clear cut.

Then there’s this:

"This is not about Asians or black or brown or white," he said. "This is about education and cutting off these resources from all the students. It's a big blow for all the students who might have to look for some alternative ways to complete their college degrees."

Not about Asians? So reporter Lisa Falkenberg is misremembering you here. I guess:

But Vo, a Democrat who emigrated from Vietnam about 30 years ago, said UT's decision may discourage Asian students who need all the resources they can get while pursuing their education. "Cutting off a fraternity like this means cutting off the support network for the students," Vo said.

For many Asian students, Vo said, fraternities provide moral support, educational guidance and career advice that parents may not be able to give. He said they also offer vital networking opportunities for minority groups who need a leg up in today's competitive job market.

As mentioned in the article, there’s more than one Asian-American fraternity at UT. If you need such a vital "networking" resource, and are unable to use the University’s own career center or speak with faculty, that is. Unfortunately, the most prominent one (Alpha Kappa Delta Phi) has been suspended through spring of 2006 for – you guessed it – hazing.

As I said before, I wouldn’t expect much beyond lip service from Vo. These guys screwed up, a kid got killed, and they’re paying for it. My sympathy for the organization is limited, considering the fact that this is just the latest in a long and seemingly unending string of shit from these organizations.

A Perfectly Cromulent Hiatus

Too much going on this weekend, what with family in town for Xmas and me trying to finish up a couple of writing projects, so APCB won't be updated until some time next week, and entries will be sporadic until the new year. In 2006, I'm going to try and update the site's look, preferably using lots of animated .gifs and embedded .midi files, which are always fun.

So happy pagan-holiday-ripoff of your choice, drive safe, vote often in the poll below (Charlie Brown's only beating the Grinch by 4 votes, and Star Wars is trouncing The Year Without a Santa Claus), and never moon a werewolf.

Coming down the Mountain

I never bothered to submit a review for Brokeback Mountain to Film Threat, since it had already been tackled by someone else, and my general rule of thumb with regard to multiple reviews is that I don’t bother if my opinion doesn’t differ significantly from a review that’s already been submitted.

As it happens, Phil’s two star assessment is not one I agree with. However, seeing as how I don’t have time right now for a proper review (maybe I’ll get one in for year’s end), I thought I’d offer some thoughts here.

First off, the publicity surrounding the movie deserves mention, because Brokeback Mountain has been included on just about every major reviewer’s best of the year list, and is already pretty much guaranteed a Best Picture nomination. All this before the movie even has a wide release. This is going to result in some backlash, since it’s almost impossible to live up to that kind of hype (see also Napoleon Dynamite). As a result, I was a little wary going in.

The good news is, Brokeback Mountain is still a very good film. If you can distance yourself from the agenda setting and wiseass comments made by many mainstream critics, you come away with a moving love story that just happens to involve two men. What makes it above average is the believable way Ennis (Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) deal with the exceedingly masculine environment that forces them to hide their relationship and, in fact, maintain a heterosexual front through marriage and child-rearing. I bought the longing they felt.

The cinematography is also breathtaking, which isn’t hard to do in a film set in the Bighorns. The setup, as I've said before, still plays a lot like Same Time, Next Year, as Ennis and Jack age over the course of almost 20 years, but it seems more organic.

For all their supposed caution, however, they’re pretty stupid. Ennis’ wife Alma (Michelle Williams) catches them right off the bat, and Ennis himself never even bothers to cover his tracks on his "fishing trips" by bringing home some actual fish. Overall, I’d give it 3 ½ stars. It’s a good film, but I saw plenty this year that were better. As for specifics:

The Good

+ Heath Ledger: Ledger has always been on the periphery of my consciousness as an actor. I really enjoyed him in Ten Things I Hate About You and Monster’s Ball (a film I otherwise couldn’t stand), liked A Knight’s Tale, and didn’t see Lords of Dogtown, The Four Feathers, or The Order (thought I’m told by The Wife that the last one is one of the worst movies she’s ever seen). His Ennis is a palpably tormented man, and Ledger is a lock for a Best Actor nod. It’s well-deserved.

+ Direction: Ang Lee’s laconic style here allows everything to come together at a more natural and believable pace. And while having the mountains in the background never hurts, but there aren’t that many panoramic shots. Honestly, I’ve always thought him to be somewhat overrated, but he’s a lot more hands-off here, which lets Larry McMurty’s screenplay and the performances take the fore.

+ Linda Cardellini: Trashy, in a tube top and platform sandals. Thank you, Jebus.

The Not Good

- Jake Gyllenhall: I never, for one second, bought Jack as an actual cowboy, rodeo or not. I’m sure Lee’s point in casting him was to emphasize how out of place he was, but there’s no way this guy ever worked a ranch.

- Heath Ledger: Speak. The hell. Up. I realize Ennis’ mumbling is the embodiment of his repressed and taciturn upbringing, but if I hadn’t watched this on a screener DVD I could easily rewind, I would’ve been exceedingly pissed, as much of his dialogue is unintelligible on first listen (his last line, for example).

- Me: I resent the fact that I now have to worry about the suspicion Brokeback Mountain has cast upon my own annual camping trip with my high school/college buddies. In case The Wife is reading this, I just want to promise her I would rather freeze to death on a mountain that snuggle up to peenman’s hairy ass.

Though I hear seadog's is smooth and kissable.

Holiday revue

One for three this week:

Fun with Dick and Jane - one star

The Ringer - no stars

Munich - three and a half stars

"Phew-ee! Whoo! Oh! You know, I never walk out of a movie, but --- yecch!"

I've been trying to get around to completing my annual "Worst of" list of movies for the past year, but have had some trouble narrowing my selections down. 2005 was host to an inordinate amount of crap, making the act of distilling one of the shittiest years in movie history into a mere ten picks daunting indeed. Further, there was no clear-cut absolute worst movie to put in the vaunted #1 position.

That was until last night, that is, when I saw The Ringer.

I really don't know what I can compare the experience to, except maybe sitting in your doctor's waiting room, simultaneously suffering from a migraine headache, walking pneumonia, and prolapsed hemorrhoids
while the guy next to you loudly opines on yesterday's episode of Dr. Phil while emptying his colostomy bag on your shoes (that’s going in the review, by the way). I can count on one finger the number of movies I've walked out on, but I left a good ten minutes before the end of The Ringer, because a) I'd gotten the gist, and b) I almost lost it.

Understand something, the preview that played before this movie was for Big Momma's House 2, and people laughed. The bar had already been set so low for this audience I shouldn't have been
surprised by the often enthusiastic reception The Ringer enjoyed, but it was all I could do at several points during the film not to hurl my 32 oz. beverage at some nearby cackler while loudly questioning his primate ancestry.

I’m not overly concerned with how the “special” cast members were treated, since – by most accounts – everything was hunky dory. No, The Ringer is simply the latest (and worst) in a long line of horrendously unfunny “comedies” utilizing shots to the groin and insincere attempts at being heart-warming to manipulate audiences, who are all too willing to be manipulated in the first place. Anyone paying money for this should be ashamed of themselves. Hell, I saw it for free, and I know I’m mortified by the experience.

"Any other strange behavior?"
"He quit blinking. He says that's when they kill you."

Oopsie:

President Bush, brushing aside bipartisan criticism in Congress, said today he approved spying on suspected terrorists without court orders because it was "a necessary part of my job to protect" Americans from attack.

The president said he would continue the program "for so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill American citizens," and added it included safeguards to protect civil
liberties.

Bush bristled at a year-end news conference when asked whether there are any limits on presidential power in wartime.

"I just described limits on this particular program, and that's what's important for the American people to understand," Bush said.

Raising his voice, Bush challenged Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton — without naming them — to allow a final vote on legislation renewing the anti-terror Patriot Act. "I want senators from New York or Los Angeles or Las Vegas to go home and explain why these cities are safer" without the extension, he said.

Ah yes, having a president trot out the tried and true "tiger repellant" fallacy never ceases to amuse.

I have to read the transcripts of these rare "press conferences" because it honestly pains me to hear the man speak. Unlike some, I don't liken it to the feeling when the slow kid gets up to speak in front of the class, but rather the sensation you have when the popular kid who didn't bother to read the assigment tries to bullshit his way through the oral part of the final exam. With the slow kid, at least you feel pity. In Bush's case, it's naked disgust, and an increasing sense of bewilderment that anyone voted for the man in the first place.

Reid represents Nevada; Clinton is a New York senator, and both helped block passage of the legislation in the Senate last week.

"In a war on terror we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment," Bush said.

And another thing; it's telling how all the accounts of Bush's speech use terms like "bristling" and "angry" and "raising his voice." The temerity of those Senators and reporters to point out to him that bypassing the FISA and ignoring the checks and balances in place might, golly, violate the Constitution he claims gives him the authority to conduct domestic surveillance in the first place.

He's just lucky he didn't get caught getting a blow job. Then he might be in some real trouble.

"If TV has taught me anything, it's that miracles always happen to poor kids at Christmas."

Never one to shy away from rehashing old content, and because we've been innundated with them for a few weeks, I've decided to re-run a poll from a few years ago to find out what the The Bestest Classic Christmas TV Special of All Time.is.

The rules are fairly elastic, but by "classic" I generally mean "not released in the last twenty years." There are a couple of exceptions, because it's my poll, and such arbitrary rule breaking is the closest I ever get to actual power.

Way back when, the Grinch won pretty handily (37% of the vote). I have at least, oh - six or seven more readers now - however, so perhaps the results will be different this time.

A few observations from the list:

The late '60s-early '70s was really when Rankin-Bass asserted their dominance over yuletide entertainment. Truly a black period on America's animation history.

Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol is the TV show Martin Riggs is watching as he prepares to eat a bullet in Lethal Weapon.

The Sesame Street special won an Emmy.

Beavis and Butthead are here by special request. You're welcome, Mom.

"This match will determine once and for all which nation is the greatest on earth: Mexico or Portugal!"

Chuck wants to know what we should name the new MLS team we're getting here in Houston. "Earthquakes" won't cut it, for obvious reasons and so we face a naming conundrum. I think I speak for everyone in this great city that - "Texans" notwitstanding - we pride ourselves on the great care and concern we put into such momentous decisions. Not just for our city's self esteem, but also for the viability of the franchise's future merchandising.

As I said in another forum way back when the city was all excited about getting an NFL team, we tend to be a little hemmed in by convention when it comes to these kinds of things. Sure, it'd be easy to pick another bozo generic scary animal name (what do you mean "Raptor is taken? How about "Allosaurus?" Or "Sumatran Rat Monkey?") or tired Texas stereotype, but true vision requires that we step "outside the box," to coin a phrase, and look for something truly unique.

However, current MLS teams seem more enamored of names that are more conceptual - like "Revolution" - or nebulous - like, uh, "Galaxy." These, like soccer itself, are pretty boring, but I feel certain we can come to some sort of agreements on a moniker that distracts most of the viewing public from the sport's soporific effects. At first, I thought of these:

The Hurricanes
The Humidity

Catchy, and either of these would also capitalize on the crowd pleasing tactic of alliteration in association with the home city's name. Unfortunately, neither really captures Houston's unique je ne sais quois. Maybe these would be a little more fitting:

The Fire Ants
The Black Tide
Se Habla Ingles
The Gridlock
Real Swamptown
The Overturned 18-Wheelers
The Potholes
The Flying Roaches
The Groundwater Contaminators
The Morbidly Obese

The sky really is the limit in a city as multifaceted as ours.

Snarkery in brief

Seen while perusing the local rag this morning:

Lawmakers want fence to curb illegal immigration

WASHINGTON -- The House agreed to build a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border to shut down illegal immigration, but continued to wrangle over whether a guest worker program is needed.

Of course it's needed, you imbeciles. Who do you think's going to build the damn thing?

"Alone I walk in the night
'Cause I just can't stop this feelin'
It's torture"

Our Fearless Leader takes his bold stand against any further Jacksons songs:

President Bush embraced Sen. John McCain's proposal to ban cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of terrorism suspects on Thursday, reversing months of opposition that included White House veto threats.

Bowing to pressure from the Republican-run Congress and abroad, the White House signed off on the proposal after a fight that pitted the president against members of his own party and threatened to further tarnish a U.S. image already soiled by the abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

Bush said the ban and accompanying interrogation standards will "make it clear to the world that this government does not torture and that we adhere to the international convention of torture, whether it be here at home or abroad."

Hey, that's great. And all it took to change his mind was lobbying by the one guy in the United States Senate who's actually been tortured.

Given that precedent, Bush should have a lot of input on any upcoming DWI legislation.

After the deal was announced, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he would block completion of one of the two defense bills that includes the ban unless he got White House assurances that "the same high level of effective intelligence gathering" would be achieved if the agreement became law.

Gee, that shouldn't be too hard.

The agreement was reached a day after the House — in bipartisan fashion — endorsed McCain's proposal. That vote put both GOP-controlled chambers behind McCain by veto-proof majorities, putting pressure on the White House to reach an agreement.

It came as the president finds himself defending his wartime policies daily amid declining public support for the Iraq war and his own low standing in opinion polls. The United States also is feeling pressure and facing questions from its European allies over its treatment of detainees held abroad.

It remains to be see how the McCain amendment will succeed when all those other proscriptions against torture our country allegedly agrees with have failed. Presumably the Eighth Amendment, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UNCAT, and the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions don't pack enough "oomph" for the current Administration.

Of course, if that "goddamned piece of paper" isn't enough for our President, I don't see how a series of resolutions written by a bunch of goddamed foreigners should make a difference.

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag

I make a lot of largely unfunny jokes about my family because, for the most part, I'm an asshole. My emotional immaturity and advanced state of social retardation causes me to address situations of actual personal significance with sarcasm and lame attempts at humor.

But I've had two years now to come to terms with being a father, and I can say - without hyperbole or fear of ridicule - that having a daughter has been the best thing to ever happen to me.[1] I knew, from being friends with so many other parents, that it would be a pretty profound experience, but I had no idea just how much your worldview flips when you see your kid running towards you with her arms outstretched.

And because she's happy to see you, not because a dog is chasing her.

I realize this "breeder" shit doesn't mean a lot to [some of] the voluntarily childless among you, and I really don't care. My daughter is cool as hell, and today's her 2nd birthday, so she is the center of the universe as far as I'm concerned.[2] Happy birthday, She Who Shall Not Be Named.

Now get a job.

[1] That, and meeting Batman when I was 6.
[2] And I get to pre-board airplanes.

Just FYI

HPD Officer Seong Kim was reinstated to the force after being fired for allegedly intimidating customers with his Taser at a Wal-Mart where he worked security. The department is also awarding him full back pay.

This information comes to me courtesy of his brother. As I've been friends with both men for over ten years, I thought y'all might like to know, since it doesn't look like either KHOU or KTRK, two of the fine local news stations who so happily reported the firing in the first place, appear inclined to issue a follow-up story.

Dive!

Irwin Allen would be happy, were he not - in fact - 14 years deceased, to know that his disaster picture legacy lives on in the appropriately goofy likes of Volcano and The Day After Tomorrow, to say nothing of the endless stream of weather and natural disaster TV movies airing on Sunday nights across our great nation.

But how would he feel about Poseidon, the upcoming remake of 1972's The Poseidon Adventure, which was his inaugural picture in what would become a storied series of 1970s disaster pics? The first trailer has been released, and can be viewed here.

Yeah. Uh, I realize the original was no great shakes in the star power department, but it did have Gene Hackman before he freaked out and made Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Ernest Borgnine before...well, never mind. I'm pretty sure he could still kick my ass, "Fatso" Judson style. This new one might as well be subtitled Love Boat '06: Josh "Stealth" Lucas? Kurt "Needs Money for Goldie's Next Facelift" Russell? Richard Dreyfuss? Freaking Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas? Can Barbi Benton, Charo, and Avery Schreiber be far behind?

What's even funnier is how the trailer touts this as "from the director of Troy and The Perfect Storm." The Perfect Storm? No shit? And here I thought it was the latest Sense & Sensibility remake that featured that shot of the ship getting slammed by a tidal wave. Kudos, Wolfgang Petersen, for not allowing yourself to get pigeonholed.

Even with a budget of almost $140 million, I was a little surprised Warner Bros. wasn't trying to make this more competitive in the Memorial Day market (the release date right now is May 12). Then I saw that it'd be competing with X3 and The Da Vinci Code. Don't be surprised if it gets bumped to an even later release date.

"I hear we're going to Ape Island."

King Kong review is up. I gave it a pretty glowing write-up, in spite of some pacing problems and some goofy shit that could've been left on the cutting room floor, because I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Tuesday Offspring Blogging

Composed at 6:40 this morning...

Revenge is sweet, little one.

You may not know it now, sleeping there under your Pooh blanket, with your arm loosely curled around Elmo, but the piper is about to come due. And the wages will be dear.

The consequences probably escaped your consideration when you woke up at 1:00 this morning, not jolted out of slumber by a nightmare or sudden illness, but simply because you decided that this particular ungodly hour was the perfect time to practice your strangely off-key renditions of the "A-B-C" song and "Pattycake." Who knows what you were thinking to yourself, sitting there in the sepulchral gloom of your bedroom, as you sang and chatted with unseen hosts. I'd have gone in to tell you to be quiet, except I wasn't convined you were really alone...and your spectral guests might not have taken kindly to intrusion. And so you continued. For two hours.

But dawn is breaking now, and as you slumber blissfully (who wouldn't, after such a marathon vocal performance?) you can't possibly know that your parents come from the most obnoxious wake-up stock imaginable. From the Sudden Sheet Removal, to the Pitcher of Ice Water, to air horns and popped balloons, your mother and I have been through it all with our parents and siblings. Believe me, you'll think twice about robbing me of my beauty sleep next time.

Now where are those cymbals?

"Did Steve McQueen go around squawking about how straight-as-a-wall he was?"

Having just watched Brokeback Mountain, I'm glad I don't actually have to review it (Phil Hall has that honor at FT), because I doubt I could come up with something as funny as MSNBC's Dave White, a gay critics who helpfully put together this "straight dude's guide:"

"But I am a heterosexual man," you're thinking, "very, very, very, very straight." And you're kind of freaking out as the release date quickly approaches — and even the expression "release date" is making you kind of jittery. You're hoping to remind your female life partner that, while you feel gay people are very wonderful, colorful, witty additions to the human population and that Ellen sure is fun to watch dance in the credit card commercial and that Tom Hanks really deserved that Academy Award for whatever that movie was where he died at the end, that you are very, very, very, very straight and that it should exempt you from seeing Adorable Jake...um... do "it" with Heath Ledger. You really don't even want to know what "it" entails because you've lived this long without finding out.

Among his points, I found this one the most personally relevant:

6. Anne Hathaway, who plays AJ's wife, gets topless. The End I think it's fair to report this and here’s why: as a gay man, the only reason I even agreed to sit through the really stupid remake of The Longest Yard was because one of my friends told me you get to see the wrestler Goldberg in the shower. In one scene. That's it. I sat through the whole thing for one scene. In that respect, my hetero pals, we are all brothers deep inside — it's just a different brand of naked flesh that ignites our prurience."

For those of you planning your bathroom breaks, the Hathaway scene in question is 57:55 into the film. You're welcome.

"I am looking forward to an orderly election tomorrow, which will eliminate the need for a violent blood bath."

When The Wife got back from voting in Saturday's runoff election around 9 AM, she informed me she was the whopping 8th person to vote at our polling station. I knew runoff elections weren't marked by high attendance, but I figured that numbers would pick up as the day went on.

While running errands that afternoon, I stopped by to vote around 1 PM. After signing in, I asked what number I was. The two workers briefly consulted their lists and the guy in front of me answered, "22."

You get the government you don't vote for, I guess. At least one of the candidates I was supporting won.

R.I.P Richard Pryor

There's a very short list of comedians who effectively commented on the state of human affairs while making us laugh, and Richard Pryor is near the top (along with - I'd argue - Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks, and George Carlin). The man made his mistakes, and some terrible movies, but in his heyday he couldn't be topped. He was, along with Carlin and Steve Martin, my introduction to the world of stand-up comedy in the late '70s, and even though poor health kept him from doing much of anything for the last 20 years, those old routines are still pretty damn funny.

Few of the great ones are left, since it appears the life of a stand-up comedian is fraught with the constant threat of drug overdose and cancer (although even three heart attacks haven't been enough to fell Carlin). Is there somebody currently performing who might be remembered as fondly in 20 years? Looking at the current crop, I'm not optimistic, but what do you think?

And anyone mentioning Larry the Cable Guy or Dane Cook will be banned with extreme prejudice.

Poor self-promotion strategies

Stuff Magazine contacted Film Threat a few months back, wanting to talk to the guy who'd reviewed Bumfights: Cause for Concern. It seems that Indecline, the company responsible for Bumfights, had just released its latest opus, Indecline Vol.1 - It's Worse Than You Think. The magazine was doing an article on them, and wanted feedback from someone familiar with their earlier work. That someone happened to be me.

What follows is the sum total of my e-mail exchange with the article's writer (whom I won't name here):

[Stuff] Thanks for getting back. Have you seen McPherson's latest piece "Indecline Vol. 1 It's Worse Than You Think" and if you have, I have a couple of basic questions.

[Pete] Yeah, I've seen it.

[Stuff] The first is, in your mind, does Indecline have any merit? I mean it seems a little deeper, a little more intelligent than Bumfights, and I want to know if there's any serious significance to it.

[Pete] Honestly, I think the Indecline guys were more worried about getting sued than about attaching any social significance to their output.

Does it have merit? As much as "When Animals Attack 4" or "G-String Divas," I guess. The press materials for "Indecline Volume 1" make it sound like they're ripping the lid off the horrors of modern life, when in reality it seems like an excuse to get their rocks off watching skaters beat the shit out of each other and enjoying the spectacle of a paraplegic taking a dump. If that's what turns you on, knock yourself out, but they shouldn't act like it has any more sociological depth than a Guns n' Roses video.

[Stuff] And do you think mainstream media -- and by that I also mean Hollywood, has shied away from these guys, and if so, why?

[Pete] I think there will always be a market for this kind of stuff, but I doubt Hollywood will ever support it in anything but a largely tangential fashion. Moral outrage against the entertainment industry, especially video games and movies (and even magazines like Stuff), is still at a pretty high level. Companies need to pick their battles, and I don't see anybody willing to go to the mat for guys celebrating hidden camera beat-down footage and half-assed anti-corporate vandalism.

[Stuff] I'm getting close to deadline, so forgive me if I'm being a little brief in my questions.

[Pete] No sweat. Let me know if you decide to use any of this.

Shockingly, they didn't decide to use it. I realized, about halfway through the exchange, that questions about Indecline's "merit" were pretty leading, and that I was most likely giving answers in some opposition to what he was looking for.

Sure enough, I checked out the article a few weeks back and none of my comments made it into the finished piece, and it was pretty easy on Indecline. Truthfully, I feel kind of bad for the guy who wrote it, since I don't imagine he gets much of a mandate from Stuff to ask hard-hitting questions which might distract its readers from the airbrushed cleavage on display.

The sad fact is, I'm not very good at self-promotion. This here blog is where I post most of my so-called accomplishments, and I don't feel too bad about that because all of you are here voluntarily. Or should be (if not, please don't tell me what sort of sick degenerate would force someone to read this crap).

For example, when The Wife told me someone in her office mentioned hearing about the Frigid 50 on Mix 96.5 last week, a small part of my brain piped up that I should let the station know that one of the writers was in Houston and would be happy to discuss it. Shit like that. But I didn't, and I don't, because I have yet to find the happy medium between Salinger-esque reclusiveness and Paris Hilton style attention whoring.

I could have tempered my answers somewhat, just to improve my chances of getting a one-line mention in a magazine famous for featuring grade 'C' starlets on its cover. I considered it, fleetingly, just as I've considered giving a couple 5-star reviews to shitty movies in the hopes of getting my name on the release date publicity. I guess that's just not my bag.

Anyway, the magazine might still be on shelves. Issue #73, December 2005, pages 112-116. The article is called "Guerilla Warfare."

And Mila Kunis is on the cover.

"'Cause Mr. Phillips never blew enough hot air to need a little gold plated paperweight."

The new Grammy nominations are here! The new Grammy nominations are here!

Mariah Carey's comeback came full circle Thursday as she was nominated for eight Grammys, including album of the year for "The Emancipation of Mimi" and song and record of the year for her torch ballad "We Belong Together."

"This year has been such a blessing," Carey told The Associated Press shortly after the nominations were announced. "This is prayers answered. I'm grateful for the nominations and I'm really grateful for the fact that people are responding to the music I've made."

I'm reminded of one of Evan Dorkin's comic strips, which shows God watching an awards show and commenting, "Don't thank me, kid...I fucking hated your album."

The Grammy people aren't responding to your music, Mariah, they're just happy you released an album so they can continue to prove their irrelevance by nominating dreck like Fall Out Boy, Rascal Flatts, and Kanye West instead of Ryan Adams, Coldplay, or - dare I say - the Transplants.

Speaking of West, he was back to his old tricks during his "nomination acceptance" speech. I don't expect you to sit through it, even though I did, so here's the transcript:

If I don't win album of the year, I'm gonna...I'm really gonna have a problem with that.

I could NEVER talk myself out of it. You know why? Because I was in a studio, and I put in the work. I don't care if I jumped up and down on the couch right now like Tom Cruise, I don't care WHAT I do. I don't care how much I STUNT, you can never take away from the amount of WORK that I put into it.

So, I don't wanna hear all that politically correct stuff. You put the camera in front of me, I'm gonna tell you like this: I worked HARD to get here. I put my love, I put my heart, I put my money...I don't make that...I'm $600,000 in the hole right now on that album. And you tell me about being politically incorrect? People love these songs! You talk to someone whose grandmother just died and listens to "Roses." And you tell me about being politically incorrect.

I'm talking about HISTORY. I never got five mics in the Source, never got five stars from the Vibe. They said it's not a classic. So, Jesus Walks is not a classic? Roses is not a classic? Gold Digger wasn't song of the year?

50 Cent gets shot nine times and nobody can spare a bullet for this moron?

I ain't Lion

My review of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is ready for your reverent perusal. Note the helpful and comprehensive list of Christian references.

Known Lennonists

Unless you were living in a hole yesterday, you knew it was the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's murder. The Beatles were the first on a long line of bands I listened to obsessively, and I devoured everything of theirs I could find (fortunately, my parents had an extensive discography). I always appreciated the counterpoint Lennon's cynicism and darker edge offered to McCartney's pop sensibilities, even if I never believed that "all we need is love."

Even so, I found this Bloom County strip still held some relevance, given the political climate today:

Or, for those of you with a less sentimental bent, there's this lyric from Marching Plague:

Poor Johnny, Poor Johnny
He got a bullet now he's dead
Poor Yoko, Poor Yoko
They shoulda shot your ugly ass instead

APCB caters to all types.

And you shall know us by the trailer of dead...

Get your previews here...why see the movie when you can watch a preview?

X-Men 3

The Bad: Aardvark Ratner is directing, Juggernaut looks like...well, not Juggernaut, and I'm not buying Kelsey Grammer as Beast. Plus, no Nightcrawler.

The Good: Fastball Special, and maybe Cyclops gets to do something this time around.

The Pink Panther

Is anyone actually planning on seeing this? Did aliens switch Steve Martin with Joe Piscopo? Can I somehow come down with rabies in time to avoid screening it?

Tristan & Isolde

The beginning of this reminds me of Conan the Barbarian. The middle part, Erik the Viking, and the last part...The O.C. (I blame the Evanescence song).

The Fountain

You know you've seen a good trailer when you come away from it wondering what the hell was going on. Mission accomplished, Aronofsky.

The Producers

Saw this last night, and it was pretty good. To all future directors planning on adapting a musical to the big screen (too late for you guys who made Rent), don't try to disguise the fact that the audience is watching a big goofy production. We understand that what we're seeing isn't real. That's why we're sitting in a theater and not at a bus stop.

It ain't L.A. vs. New York, but it's a start

Enjoying your stay, Katrina refugees?

Several Westbury High School students were arrested this afternoon after a brawl involving Hurricane Katrina evacuees, according to Houston Independent School District officials.

"There was a fight that broke out in the cafeteria between some girls and it spread outside," said HISD spokewsoman Adriana Villarreal. "The only injury we know of so far is one child that had a minor laceration under their eye."

Westbury, located in southwest Houston, has nearly 2,500 students, including 300 from Louisiana.

Villarreal said she did not yet know how many students were arrested or what they were fighting about.

I have no special insight into the motives behind this fracas, but I'm pretty sure you can narrow it down to one of the following three flashpoints:

1. Whose NFL team is shittier? (Ours)

2. Which city has worse weather? (Push - NO gets the edge for essentially getting washed off the map)

3. Whose multi-purpose domed arena is more useless? (Theirs...for now)

"What do mean there's no ice? You mean I gotta drink this coffee hot?"

If it's the Christmas season, it must be time once again for the Film Threat Frigid 50. We like to think our anti-power list provides a nice complement to similarly meaningless rankings like you'll find in Premiere and EW.

And if not, at least it'll give you a nice ten-minute distraction from the horrible news of Christina Applegate's divorce.

"Stomach...churning. Bowels...clenching. Not much time..."

A nasty stomach bug is currently having its way with our family. And while it has thankfully spared our daughter, The Wife and I have been more or less incapacitated since late Sunday night. If I haven't responded to your comments, replied to your e-mails, our kissed your ass for a writing gig, it's because I've spent the last 36 hours either clutching the toilet or curled into a fetal ball on the couch.

Not a pretty picture, but you deserve the whole ugly truth.

If you can tear yourself away from Grey's Anatomy...

Yours truly is going to be on something called Red Bar Radio tonight around 9:10 PM. From their web page:

Red Bar Radio is two hours of LIVE non-stop talk radio madness. This isn't your average "put-me-to-sleep" talk radio show. We take talk a step further while bashing celebrities, polluting politics, and crushing current events. There's never a moment of "dead air."

I may or may not be on the same program as comedian Doug Stanhope and preteen Nazi folk duo Prussian Blue. I'll try not to put anyone to sleep.

Friday Offspring Blogging

My kid is something else. So's yours, if you have one. You're as convinced of it as I am, because it's one of those things hardwired into us so we don't leave our offspring on a hillside to fend for themselves against packs of feral dogs and Irishmen. You parents know what I'm talking about, that feeling that your child is really exceptional. It's the mindset that says, "I know everybody thinks their kid is something special, but mine really is." It's no wonder people without kids think we're all assholes.

As a parent, I'm no different. I smugly read the child development books and realize, "Hey, She Who Shall Not Be Named clapped her hands a month early! Genius!" Or, "She's arranging those water bottles in a more or less straight line! Genius!"[1]

But they'll mess with your heads. Children will throw you a curveball, usually just after you've smugly told your friends how your almost-two-year-old can count to ten in Spanish and recite the alphabet. For it's at that exact time you'll walk into the dining room and see your rare gem of a daughter hunched under the dining room table like an Australopithecus, eating a Nerf football. I don't think she swallowed any of it, but she had obviously taken several bites, even after realizing it wasn't a big marshmallow. She spat the last chunk out, making the face you make when you've been chewing on plastic foam for the last few minutes, and was in the process of taking another bite before I yanked it from her grasp.

From her reaction, you'd have thought I'd kicked Elmo in the nards.[2]

Maybe I should hold off on those Harvard applications.

[1] Or OCD. Time will tell.
[2] Does Elmo have nards?

Upon further review...

Aeon Flux does suck with the power of a thousand Shop-Vacs, but you'll have to wait until this afternoon to read about it.

Meanwhile, here's a review of First Descent to keep you happy.

"Some people never got over Vietnam or the night their band opened for Nirvana"

Dean Sluyter was on PRI the other day, talking about his book, Cinema Nirvana. Sluyter is a movie critic (though I can't seem to find where his reviews appear) and Buddhist. His book purports to search for enlightenment in such classic films as The Godfather, The Graduate, and Casablanca.

Leaving aside the question of just how into the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha Rick Blaine really was, I had to take issue with his supposed discovery of a logic flaw in Jaws, another of the films he discusses in his book. In the interview, Sluyter talked about the folly of Quint, Brody, and Hooper heading out to sea on the Orca when all of the shark's attacks had taken place near the shore of Amity.

"All" the attacks? Not to pick nits (or incur the wrath of the Dalai Lama), but Ben Gardner - the guy whose head pops into the hole to scare the bejeezus out of Hooper - was killed on his fishing boat well offshore. Given that, it makes a certain amount of sense that Quint would've sought the shark further out.

Nothing against Sluyter, whose interview I actually found quite enjoyable, but don't fuck with me when it comes to Jaws.

The Humpty Dance

Settle a debate for me...

My gym played a song yesterday that gave me such a start I almost dropped an 80-lb dumbbell on my testicles. When I remarked to the guy next to me that I'd almost sterilized myself, he helpfully let me know that the song in question was "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas.

Have you ever experienced one of those situations where you're blissfully unaware of something and then, just like that (in my best Verbal Kint voice), you can't get away from it? Predictably, I heard the song two more times yesterday, and have since disconnected every radio in the house to make sure I don't hear it again.

So where does the debate come in? I'm getting to it.

The Wife comes home as I'm yanking A/V cables out of the stereo and, understandably, asks me what the hell I'm doing. I describe my dilemma, but also put forth something else that worries me. Namely, that if intelligent life forms somewhere in the universe should happen upon a transmission of this song, they'll swoop down upon us and incinerate our planet like so many biology textbooks at a Kansas PTA rally.

Not so, retorted the missus. Perhaps - she said - just perhaps, they'd hear the song and, realizing we were obviously too intellectually stunted to pose a serious threat, leave us in peace. I had to admit, she made a valid point. I mean, would any technologically advanced society hear something like this and honestly have cause to fear us?

What u gon' do with all that ass?
All that ass inside them jeans?
I'm a make, make, make you scream
Make you scream, make you scream.
'Cause of my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump.

There is, of course, a third option: that the aliens in question are actually responsible for song in question. I can only surmise that their use of it is intended to melt our collective cerebral cortices to such an extent that we won't even notice when they descend on Earth and load us up to serve as slaves in their iridium mines.

The moral being, uh, society is doomed. And quit listening to the goddamn Black Eyed Peas.