A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

"That's cold, Obi-Wan."

A revelation came upon me while watching that T-Mobile commercial where Charles Barkley offers to put Dwayne Wade in his "five" (which is apparently a gift on par with Lillian Russell's bicycle) if he sinks a putt. Wade - of course - doesn't, and Sir Charles' phone is safe.

That's when a vision, unbidden, came to me. It was an image of Barkley's cell phone screen. Specifically, his five...

And they were all Michael Jordan.

But what I really want to do is direct...

Doc Nebula, who appears to be the sole contributor over at The Miserable Annals of the Earth, brings up an intriguing question:

It's odd. Something has changed in how films are made these days. Back in the 80s, when I was in college, I had many favorite directors, and I based my moviegoing choices around them. None of them were completely reliable (in fact, looking back on it, pretty much every director I ever would have listed as a favorite at that time -- Hill, Spielberg, Scorcese, Romero, Myers, Gilliam, Kasdan, Cameron, Howard, Levinson, McTiernan -- ended up producing more movies I disliked than liked; Hill, in fact, has only directed five films I really enjoy out of 25... and most of the others have similar track records).

And yet, nowadays it seems like I have no favorite directors, and while I will weigh directors when deciding what movies to see, it's no longer anything like the decisive factor it once was. Curtis Hansen directed one good movie right in the middle of an ocean of crap, but it was SUCH a good movie... I like Chris Nolan's work, but what the fuck was that INSOMNIA nonsense? Bryan Singer did USUAL SUSPECTS, sure, and the first two X-MEN movies were swell, but I still can't pry SUPERMAN RETURNS off my nutsack. Peter Jackson? Jesus Christ, even if I didn't keep a cheap videotape copy of THE FRIGHTENERS around as a reliable insomnia cure, I need only remember how mind bogglingly awful the last two LOTR installments were to get me past that. Barry Sonnenfeld? Lick me, WILD WILD WEST boy.

Interesting conundrum. I can't really get behind any of the directors Doc listed in the first paragraph, and some - like Kasdan (The Big Chill) and Howard (The Da Vinci Code, How the Grinch Stole Christmas) - never did it for me to begin with. But I see his point. Scorsese used to be nails, and McTiernan from 1987-1990 couldn't be topped, but everyone else is so damned uneven these days.

I'm not as down on Hanson, but then I liked Wonder Boys as well as L.A. Confidential. And the juvenile me used to love all things John Carpenter. Sadly, I'm pretty sure the scales fell from my eyes some time around Memoirs of an Invisible Man. Same with pre-Spider-Man 3 Sam Raimi.

There are others that the jury's still out on. Among these are Stephen Syriana Gaghan, Ben Affleck (don't laugh; Gone Baby Gone was really good), and Sarah Polley.

Of the current directors that spring immediately to mind, I'd have to say Neil Marshall - as I'm a huge fan of both Dog Soldiers and The Descent (I'll reserve judgment on Doomsday) - Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Supremacy), Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Millions), Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille), David Fincher (minus Panic Room), and Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth).

So go ahead and tell me who I forgot.

The Goober Bowl

Here commenceth what is most likely APCB's last NFL-related post of the year.

The prospect of another Manning in the Super Bowl is about as welcome a concept as a school of candiru fish interrupting my hot tub rendezvous with Carla Gugino, but there it is:

Eli, the baby of the Manning quarterback clan, finally has arrived.

And he's taking the New York Giants on yet another road trip -- to Glendale, Ariz., site of the Super Bowl.

Manning repeatedly put the Giants in position to win the NFC championship Sunday, and when Lawrence Tynes came through at last with a 47-yard field goal in overtime, New York had itself an improbable 23-20 victory over the Green Bay Packers at frostbitten Lambeau Field.

Now comes Mission Impossible: beating the undefeated New England Patriots in two weeks in a Super Bowl matchup hardly anyone saw coming.

"We haven't been given a shot, but we're here and I think we're deserving of it," Manning said. "Right now I'm excited as I can be."

[...]

Eli's arrival comes one year after older brother Peyton won a Super Bowl for the Indianapolis Colts, earning MVP honors to boot. Peyton stayed away Sunday, but father Archie was on hand for the biggest moment of his youngest son's career.

That Archie was a real trooper. On each of the 800 times the camera showed him in the box, he was burying his head in his hands. Until the Giants won, of course, when he was front and center. Sir Not Appearing On This Blog and I were able to temper our disappointment by rewinding to this point in Fox's broadcast:

Just so you know, my plans for my impending 40th birthday involve attending a Bears game in Soldier field in December. I couldn't decide if I was going to go shirtless, or make everyone with me do it, but having seen these ladies give their all in subzero temperatures, I may have to ratchet my exploits up to full nudity.

Anyway, I found myself explaining to The Wife just how Manning came to play for the Giants, following his drafting by San Diego and the subsequent trade they made with New York for Philip Rivers. Someone else commented how Archie had advised Eli that San Diego would be bad for his career. This was when I loudly opined that if there's anybody in a worse position to offer guidance on playing for a winning team, it's Archie Manning, who - in 13 pro seasons - never played for a team with a winning record. Without two freak sons, the guy would be Dan Pastorini. Obviously it hasn't worked out badly for Eli, but he certainly could've been forgiven for telling his old man to jam it crossways back in '04.

And that was after only three Dogfish Head IPAs.

And now, because the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry doesn't get enough coverage each year, we now have a Big Apple-Boston Super Bowl. I'm a guy who bitches about East Coast media bias as much as anyone, but when Boston has had two World Series titles in three years, the Patriots are one win away from going 19-0, and the Celtics are running away with the East...it's tough to complain about the relative lack of Houston sports coverage.

And so, in the interest of blatant bandwagoneering, I'm going to go ahead and root for the Pats. For one thing, I'm sick of the '72 Dolphins. For a while there I thought I might be able to just wait them out - professional football players don't have very long lifespans, after all - but I'm no longer as patient as I once was. I'll probably be eating my words when Randy Moss and Richard Seymour are popping corks on the sidelines in 2040, but for now, shut those old bastards up.

That, and the younger Flanders bores me. He has two expressions; there's Confounded Manning - which we see right before he calls a timeout because the defense has thrown a scheme at him he can't figure out, and there's Pouty Manning, who usually emerges right after he throws a pick. The guy's 6'4" and every time they show him in close-up he looks like a kid who was just told by his father that it's wrong to kick dogs.

Finally, can you imagine the sheer tonnage of Manning-related commercials if that twerp wins the championship? Those Oreo commercials are excruciating enough, but put the two of them in a Levitra ad and the football advertising circle would truly be complete.

We'll see come Sunday. In the meantime, I'll probably try to ignore SportsCenter for the next week, and limit my pregame viewing on Sunday to six hours or so.

I guess Hard Candy wasn't on their list

Sweet, sweet schadenfreude:

"Clean" Movie Maven Arrested For Teen Sex

(CBS) A Utah retailer of family-friendly tapes and DVDs - Hollywood films with the "dirty parts" cut out of them - has been arrested for trading sex with two 14-year-old girls.

Orem police say Flix Club owner Daniel Dean Thompson, 31, and Issac Lifferth, 24, were booked into the Utah County jail on charges of sexual abuse and unlawful sexual activity with a 14-year-old.

CBS Station KUTV in Salt Lake City reports that the shocking discovery came when a mother found a $20 bill in her daughter's room last week and questioned her about where the money came from.

The girl confessed that she and a friend had been paid for sexual favors by an older male.

Lifferth was additionally charged with patronizing a prostitute and was also in possession of a prescription drug medication without a prescription.

Thompson's Flix Club was one of several Utah-based video outlets that traded in edited versions of R- and PG-13-rated films, catering to clientele who wanted to watch hit movies without nudity, sex, language or graphic violence.

Thomson and Lifferth were obviously in the same "Throw 'Em Off the Trail" class as Larry Craig.

Because I'm sure you have as much free time as I do

Via MetaFilter, I see The Atlantic has opened up its archives:

Beginning today, TheAtlantic.com is dropping its subscriber registration requirement and making the site free to all visitors.

Now, in addition to such offerings as blogs, author dispatches, slideshows, interviews, and videos, readers can also browse issues going back to 1995, along with hundreds of articles dating as far back as 1857, the year The Atlantic was founded.

We're pleased to bring The Atlantic before a broader online audience. We hope that the quality of its writing, the trenchancy of its insights, and the depth and thoughtfulness of its reporting will inspire many of our online readers to join the Atlantic family by becoming print subscribers.

Yeah...let me know how that works out for you.

Some of the stories linked on MeFi's main article include Host, David Foster Wallace's look at right-wing radio; Eric Fast Food Nation Schlosser's The Prison-Industrial Complex. I also hunted up Robert Kaplan's The Coming Anarchy, a favorite of the aimless post-Cold War set during my days in grad school, and Mark Bowden's The Angriest Man in Television, about The Wire creator David Simon.

On APCB, a day without a Wire reference is like a day without bleak, urban sunshine.

"Jimmy. Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy."

For the second year in a row, I've opted out of covering the Sundance Film Festival for Film Threat. Last year, Mark and company decided not to get a condo in Park City, and ended up staying in Salt Lake City and driving the 30-45 minutes back and forth to the fest each day. Not my kettle of fish, and things here at home were such that I was a little hesitant about taking off for a week. Also, I'd spent the two previous festivals 1) catching Ebola and 2) slogging through 4 or 5 movies a day, so I decided to take a breather.

This year, the FT team is back in Park City (intermittent webcam coverage can be had on the main site), yet here I am. I fully intend to get back up there one day, but for now I prefer spending a week in Austin for South by Southwest, and having an option on a long weekend for something like deadCENTER or CineVegas. Shorter trips, smaller fests (a relative term, WRT to SXSW), and normal strength beer temporarily win out over Paris Hilton and waiting for the bus in 10 degree weather, I'm afraid.

And I was going to say I had no regrets, until I saw that Cinematical's James Rocchi got to meet Wendell "Bunk" Pierce in Park City. Bunk! God damn it.

Sorry Don...but Bunk trumps Snape. But only just.

"Oh come on Edna, we both know these children have no future.:

The February issue of Texas Monthly has a feature on the 35 People Who Will Shape Our Future, and none other than Houston blogger extraordinnaire Charles Kuffner made the cut:

Kidding aside, he's one of many Texas bloggers who are every bit as professional as those of us in the MSM, but we'll confess that we're partial to this New York native, who graduated from Trinity University with a degree in math and did a blink-and- you'll-miss-it stint in graduate school at Rice University (he's still a member of the Marching Owl Band). Since 2002, he's been the driving force behind Off the Kuff, now the state's longest continuously published progressive political blog; his other blog, Kuff's World, has been featured on the Houston Chronicle's Web site since 2006. Unlike many digital diatribers, Kuff (who toils by day as a BlackBerry administrator for a large energy company) plays it straight, delivering Houston news and commentary on everything from city council races to the lowly Astros in the same measured, reasoned, only occasionally outraged voice. He's a fun read and a smart read and, increasingly, a gotta-read.

Indeed. He's been a daily read for me since 2002, and now he belongs to the world. Or Texas at large, anyway. Congratulations, Chuck.

"It's a Major Award!"

Oscar nominations were announced this week, with word being that the ceremony will go ahead on February 24, though in what fashion remains to be seen.

My morbid fascination with Hollywood's annual suck-off is well-documented, so lets get right to who's going to win:

Best Picture
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Just to get it out of the way, Juno has no business being on this list. Then again, neither did Forrest Gump, and we all know how that ended up.

Michael Clayton and Atonement are both the kind of movies the Academy loves. One's a legal thriller that aspires to greater meaning, and one's a period wartime romance of the kind immortalized by the excruciating The English Patient. Unfortunately for them, this category is going to come down to No Country vs. There Will Be Blood. The latter may have the edge, thanks to greater exposure (Blood snuck onto a handful of screens the last week of December) and early critical success.
The Winnah: No Country for Old Men by a Prince Valiant hair.

Best Actor
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

It's easy to forget just how good an actor Daniel Day-Lewis is. He makes a big movie only every five years or so, and then he drops out of sight. Watching There Will Be Blood, you once again get to see a truly great artist at work. He might as well be alone on the screen, as easily as he dwarfs just about everyone else in the cast (the snubbed Paul Dano being an exception) No disrespect to the other nominess in this category, but the only way Day-Lewis loses this is if he's competing against himself playing Christy Brown.
The Winnah: Daniel Day-Lewis in the easiest category to call.

Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

The Golden Age was a critical and box office bomb, and Blanchett's performance in I'm Not There is getting all the buzz, so no. Ellen Page is the new indie darling, but indie darlings don't win Best Actress unless they're playing a man, so nuh-uh. And as much as I heart Laura Linney, she isn't going to win. Personally, I think Cotillard did the best job of all the nominees, but outside of her performance, La Vie en Rose was crap. Away From Her was topical and loaded with great acting, so there you go.
The Winnah: Julie Christie.

Best Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

This and Best Supporting Actress are going to be the hardest categories to call. Three months ago, I'd have said Javier Bardem was a dead lock, but Affleck has been coming up on the outiside, and I honestly thought his Robert Ford was better than Bardem's Anton Chigurh.

But Hal Holbrook throws a major wrench in the works. He's already becoming a sentimental favorite, and this category is a notorious "lifetime achievement/consolation" prize (see also Paul Newman, James Coburn, Alan Arkin). And with recession looming and America entering it's sixth year of war, don't you want to feel good about something, dang it?
The Winnah: Beats the hell out of me. I'm still leaning towards Bardem, but that could easily change.

Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

As with the previous category, this was Amy Ryan's to lose up until I'm Not There hit theaters. Right now you have to call them the favorites, with Swinton a distant third. Ronan's a non-player, and Ruby Dee getting a nod for four minutes of screen time when she has no chance in hell is a bad joke.
The Winnah: Amy Ryan. This is the category for breakthrough performances, and Blanchett has already won, and will likely win again.

Best Director
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jason Reitman, Juno
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood.

Schnabel snaked the Golden Globe from the Coens, who are still the favorites as far as I know. Whether or not this translates to an Oscar win - especially since The Diving Bell and the Butterfly wasn't nominated for Best Picture and wasn't eligible for Best Foreign Film, remains to be seem.
The Winnah: The Coens. And there is a distinct likelihood that No Country will sweep the major awards categories for which it's nominated.

Foreign Film
Beaufort, Israel
The Counterfeiters, Austria
Katyn, Poland
Mongol, Kazakhstan
12, Russia

I haven't seen any of these, and the two that I would've liked to see nominated - Persepolis and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days - didn't make the cut.
The Winnah: Beats the hell out of me.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Christopher Hampton, Atonement
Sarah Polley, Away from Her
Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood

If Atonement has a legitimate shot at any award, it may be this one. No Country is still the favorite, which is a shame, because Polley really deserves more recognition for what she accomplished with Away From Her.
The Winnah: I can see PTA or Hampton coming from behind, but it's hard to vote against the Coens adapting Cormac McCarthy.

Best Original Screenplay
Diablo Cody, Juno
Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava and Jim Capobianco, Ratatouille
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages

I'd go with just about any of these ahead of Juno (not the overrated Lars, however), which of course means it's going to win.
The Winnah: Cody, now please go away.

Best Animated Feature Film
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf's Up

I should register some sort of righteous indignation over the lack of a Simpsons nod, but come on. And while Persepolis is a better film, there's no denying that Pixar is doing the best animation out there.
The Winnah: King Rat.

Best Cinematography
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Atonement
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Roger Deakins ran the risk of torpedoing his chances by shooting three movies in one year (Jesse James, No Country, and In the Valley of Elah), but it shouldn't matter: like Best Actor, this category is Jesse James and four also-rans.
The Winnah: Don't make me type that title again.

Huh, I guess that wasn't very quick at all.

So who got screwed? Personally, I thought Into the Wild deserved some love...maybe for Sean Penn and Eddie Vedder's score. Speaking of score, the rules need to be tweaked so that something like Jonny Greenwood's There Will Be Blood composition doesn't get overlooked in the future.

Looking at the Juno fallout, I'm mildly surprised Adrienne Shelley's Waitress didn't get a sniff, especially since, let's face it, she died and all.

Sarah Polley should've gotten a nod for Best Director.

And you could've easily bumped Hal Holbrook in favor of Gordon Pinsent in Away From Her. Or the aforementioned Dano.

But the biggest surprise for me by far was no Zodiac. I'm sure it's early release hurt it's chances, but you could easily have ganked Best Picture, Best Director (David Fincher), and Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey, Jr.) nominations for it. But I'm not an Academy voter.

"So what were your top 10 films of 2007, Pete?" Well, since you asked...

1. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
2. No Country for Old Men
3. There Will Be Blood
4. The King of Kong
5. Zodiac
6. Into the Wild
7. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
8. Eastern Promises
9. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
10. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

I submitted ballots for the Online Film Critics Society and the Houston Film Critics Society, and I wish I'd seen There Will Be Blood beforehand, 'cause uh, it's really good.

SWSNBN - Update

I don't normally post stuff like this, because we're all about lighthearted jocularity here, but Mom called my attention to this link for Autism Speaks:

The band, Five for Fighting, is generously donating $0.49 to Autism Speaks for *each time* the video is viewed . The funding goes toward research studies to help find a cure. When you have a moment, please visit the link below to watch the video and pass it along to your friends and family. They are aiming for 10,000 hits, but hopefully we can help them to surpass this goal. Click on link to view.

Even if Five for Fighting makes you dry heave, like they do me, go ahead and click the link a few times.

While I was watching the video in question, I realized I hadn't given with an update on She Who Shall Not Be Named in a while. At least, not since I last talked about the passage of HB 1919 and its subsequent signing by Gov. Perry. When last we left our Legislative follies, the bill mandating insurance coverage for ABA was soon to become the law of the land, and all was right with the world, yes?

Yeah.

Let me tell you a story. A story of something called the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, or ERISA. It was originally enacted to protect employee retirement plans, but has since morphed into a body of legislation regulating benefit plans as a whole. One section in particular, Section 514 to be exact, preempts state laws that relate to any benefit plan. Specifically, state law cannot operate on self-funded insurance plans unless the plans opt to allow it. As of right now, both The Wife and I are covered by self-funded plans (as are some 55% of workers in Texas), and as of right now, they're electing not to cover ABA. Quelle surprise.

My reaction, upon learning this, was to go out and cause some severe property damage. All those blog posts exhorting you good people to contact your representatives, all those letters to the editor, all those fucking phone calls...it felt like pissing in the wind.

That was until I found myself talking to another parent at SWSNBN's school. We discussed statistics for a while, when I found myself thinking, Where are the other kids? If we go by the oft-quoted statistic that 1 in 150 children will be diagnosed with autism, and knowing that Houston is a city of over 4 million people, then there must be thousands of kids in this area alone on the spectrum. Where the hell are they? SWSNBN's school has maybe 20 kids in it, and if the number at the handful of other, similar schools in the area are comparable, that means that probably 90% of children with ASD in Houston aren't getting comprehensive therapy.

That put things in perspective a little bit. After all, we still have all the advantages I listed when I first brought all this up: good doctors, unswervingly fantastic friends and family, employers who are very accommodating when it comes to her schedule, and plenty of resources. I'll be honest; I make more money than I ever thought possible when I was waiting tables and tending bar after college, and we're able to pretty much cover the cost of SWSNBN's school through a combination of belt-tightening and loans. Others aren't nearly as lucky.

Which is why I know that all that work wasn't completely for naught. The Wife and I - for now - may not be able to take advantage of HB 1919 (and we remain in contact with our benefits folk) - but somebody out there is able to get their child the help he/she needs because of it. And while that doesn't totally keep us from inwardly wincing when we see our friends buy 50" HD TVs and add on to their houses, it's definitely something.

As for our little girl, she's still making progress. It's incremental to us, but friends and family who don't see her on a regular basis insist she's improved dramatically over even a year ago. We're doing everything we can: ABA, speech therapy, the GFCF diet and nutritional supplements. Her receptive language skills are still just fine, provided you can get her attention, and she's not silent - like the girl in that video - by any means. The frustrating part, for her as well as us, is her continued inability to express herself effectively. The Wife and I continue to hold out hope for another Great Leap Forward in that area, to coin a phrase.

You can see it in her eyes every so often, the kid she used to be. It's so overwhelming sometimes that I almost want to shake her to see if I can get some misfiring synapse to come back on line. Until such actions are proven to have a positive effect I'm not previously aware of, however, we'll just have stick with what we're doing.

Thanks again for all your thoughts and support.

I like the [Uwe] you move

I'm relieved ashamed to admit I wasn't aware of this:

Time for rejoicing is here! Fangoria is coming to Austin, Texas for the very first time with their WEEKEND OF HORRORS spectacular. Panels and events happen during the day at the Renaissance Hotel at the Arboretum.

In the evening, festival attendees will get free admission to the Fangoria event screenings at the Alamo Drafthouse Village. A very limited number of tickets will also be available to the general public. We encourage all local horror hounds to head out to the conference and support Fangoria in their first ever visit to our town.

About the movie:
Join the inimitable Uwe Boll live in person for a screening of his newest horror opus SEED. The story of an unkillable mass murderer who survives electrocution, claws his way from the grave and wreaks bloody revenge, SEED is notorious on the festival circuit for pushing the envelope of bloody bad taste. Are you a serious gorehound ready for a test? Check out SEED and what is sure to be a lively Q&A with Germany's most irascible pugilist director.

The lovely and talented Melanie at Boxing Octopus sent me a heads-up for this, but I have previous engagements (and I'm still stockpiling karma for SXSW in a couple months).

Besides, I can't even begin to think of questions to ask Der Guten Herr Doktor. But I'll try:

"How are you dealing with the changes to German financing laws?"
"What's Sir Ben Kingsley really like?"
"You wanna step outside?"
"Do you have Kristanna Loken's number?"

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to dig out that bootleg copy of BloodRayne.

The publicist's friend

"JK" is a PR person for one of Houston's publicity firms and one of the folks we critical types interact with at the various screenings about town. Tonight was Cloverfield, J.J. Abrams' rampaging giant monster opus.

As is often the case, JK was waiting at the exit for reactions to pass on to the studio about the movie:

JK: So Pete, got a quote?
Me: "Too soon."
JK: Hmm?
Me: I mean, what is it, like...three years since 9-11? I just don't think America can handle seeing New York destroyed again by terrorist monsters.
JK: [taps pen impatiently]
Me: Okay, uh, "It'll be at least as successful as Snakes on a Plane."
JK: Good one.

I actually liked Cloverfield quite a bit, even if I'm really envious of that guy's camera battery. Mine barely runs 90 minutes, much less seven hours.

"Come with me if you want to moue."

I'd like to start off by telling the Fox network I'm watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles in spite of their wholly obnoxious advertising blitzkrieg during the last two weeks' worth of NFL games.

In a word: uneven. I know it takes place following Terminator 2 (at some point the optimism of the end of that movie gives way to the paranoia of the pilot episode). According to reliable sources (some dude I talked to at Fry's) the TV show follows a different timeline than the movies, which only makes sense when you remember John mentioning Sarah died of luekemia in 1997. Instead, they leap forward to 2007 to prevent the creation of SkyNet, as the late, lamented Miles Dyson apparently had less to do with that then we'd been previously informed. Wouldn't he be pissed.

Beyond that, I'm not sure how far they can take it. The formula so far seems pretty straightforward: Sarah, John, and cyborg ingenue "Cameron" make a little headway in obtaining information or tracking down leads...and then Cameron whales on another Terminator, usually played by another in a succession of rejects from the latest casting call for "Stomp."

Whatever. I'm a huge fan of the original Terminator, which my cadre of nerds and I watched endlessly on those long summer afternoons in high school when our fellow students were at the pool, interacting with other human beings. I love everything about that movie, from the underappreciated Michael Biehn to Linda Hamilton's breasts to Bill Paxton's "I think this guy's a couple cans short of a six-pack" to Reese's awesome fucking Nike Vandals to the flashback scene where the HK rolls over the mountain of human skulls. I've even grudgingly come to accept Brad Fiedel's annoying "nee-noo nee-ner" Casio keyboard musical score.

As for the TV show...

The Good:
+ Lena Headey - The 300 and Brothers Grimm actor is pretty decent as the Mother of the Future, even if that future is a whiny bastard.
+ The In-Jokes - I like that you need to have seen at least the first two movies to know exactly what's going on. And if that thing Cameron put together in the bank vault wasn't a Phased Plasma Rifle (in 40 watt range), well, I'll go eat a pair of Nike Vandals.
+ Expansion of the mythology - The adult John Connor sent Protectors back to the 1960s? Other resistance fighters are acting in the present day? Makes sense, actually.

The Bad:
- John Connor - I don't necessarily blame Thomas Dekker, especially since modern times more or less dictate that any televised teenager has to be an insufferable emo prick. I'm just having a hard time reconciling this brooding twerp with Edward Furlong's T2 delinquent.
- Time travel - It's best not to think about the infinite complexities involved with the repeated use of time travel; I find killing my brain with beer when it asks annoying questions helps. Quentions like: "Why didn't SkyNet just send a Terminator back to kill the "O'Connors" in 17th century Ireland? Do you think Sarah and John's ancestors could outrun a murderous cyborg on on a draft horse? Or what about Reese's ancestors? They have no knowledge of their son's heroic (and sexy) future, hence easy pickings?"

The Maybe
* Cameron - Obviously the female Terminator precedent has already been set, and it would be pretty weak to suggest SkyNet wouldn't use both sexes for their dirty work. What I have yet to see explained is why Cameron can imitate human emotions and interactions when the T-101s can't. Also, what kind of alloy is she made out of? The old Terminators supposedly weighed on the order of half a ton, even if Cameron only weighs half that, how was Sarah able to wheel her out the window? And while I realize we live in the era of One Tree Hill and other such garbage, and while I've seen proof of Summer Glau's ass-kickery in Firefly and Serenity, it's going to take a while for me to buy her as something that "doesn't feel pity or remorse."

Meh, I'll keep watching. In a world where the ongoing writer's strike has given rise to the rebirth of American Gladiators and a new era of game shows, I'll take what I can get.

"The Lord erased a major portion of the horror and utter despair that I felt during my playing days."

So thanks to whoever perused my Amazon wishlist and sent me Michael K. Haynes' The god Of Rock: A Christian Perspective of Rock Music last month. It's given me and my family hours of amusement, especially my sister-in-law, whose recent bout with stomach flu necessitated her spending several days in out bathroom over the Christmas break.

For those - mercifully - not in the know, TgOR was published in 1982 and was passed around to great hilarity by my merry band of heathens in junior high. Haynes is an ex-musician who saw the error of his ways and went on to found a ministry and become a Baptist pastor. Here's an excerpt:

IRON MAIDEN

This groups is [sic] relatively obscure "heavy metal" molten madness band that has recently come out with an album named "The Number of the Beast 666."

The promotion for this album which was seen in a recent Billboard magazine pictures the skeleton of a Rock musician looming largely over the fiery pit of hell. The Devil himself stands second in command under the authority of the musician. (They just don't know.) Darkness is in the background, lightning is flashing, and hell is seen as being filled with millions of people and demons. The artwork is unbelievably gross, but pictures the possibilities very well.

The copy for the promotion reads like this: IRON MAIDEN FORGED IN THE FIRES OF HELL - THE NEW ALBUM FROM THE MASTERS OF MOLTEN METAL MADNESS - THE BEAST ON THE ROAD and other "cute" sayings.

Iron Maiden in now on a rival with Judas Priest, Van Halen, Black Sabbath, and other bands that serve their god very well.

And it goes on like this. Come on over to my house and use our bathroom for more.

So he wasn't drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's

But was his hair perfect?

Werewolf bandit snared in north Harris County

A man who donned a werewolf mask inside a convenience store Wednesday wasn't engaging in some late Halloween festivities.

Mackinley Breeden, 28, demanded cash, not candy, about 11:30 a.m. when he stormed into a Circle K store in the 5100 block of FM 1960, Harris County deputies said.

The knife-wielding Breeden told the clerk not to move, then grabbed the money from the register and fled. A passerby saw the clerk chasing Breeden from the store, deputies said.

"He (Breeden) still had the mask on," said Harris County Sheriff's Sgt. Noel Araguz. "So, (the witness) put two-and-two together and said it was a robbery."

Rarely has the disconnect between headline and story disappointed me so. At least the savvy passerby realized that lycanthropy only manifests itself after dark. Stupidity, on the other hand, knows no circadian rhythm.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will blow up the moon."

Or Mars, whatever.

A small asteroid discovered November 20 may strike Mars next month.

Astronomers with NASA's Near Earth Object (NEO) Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, calculate the odds of a January 30 collision at 1 in 75. While this is remote, it's less so than last week's estimated 1-in-350 chance.

NEO astronomer Steve Chesley, who's used to dealing with million-to-one odds, calls the event "extremely unusual," and, in something of a twist, NEO astronomers are rooting for an impact.

An armada of spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet - the European Space Agency's Mars Express and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey - would have ringside seats to view the strike and its after-effects. Even Earth-based telescopes could potentially observe the impact because Mars is near opposition and, therefore, unusually close.

I still love the name "Near Earth Object Program." And they have all these sweet graphics, even:

Astronomers say asteroid 2007 WD5 is about 160 feet (50 meters) across. If it struck Mars, the energy would be similar to the 1908 Tunguska blast in Siberia, where a stony asteroid exploded above the taiga. The blast felled and scarred trees over 810 square miles (2,100 square km).

One difference: Tunguska was an air burst and left no crater, whereas 2007 WD5 likely would reach Mars' surface intact.

Or it would, if not for the latest update:

Additional position observations for asteroid 2007 WD5 taken on December 29 through January 2 have been used to improve the accuracy of the asteroid's orbit. As a result, the range of possible paths past Mars has narrowed by a factor of 3 and the most likely path has moved a little farther away from the planet, causing the Mars impact probability to decrease slightly to 3.6% (about one chance in 28). The new positional observations were made using the 2.4 meter telescope at New Mexico Tech's Magdalena Ridge Observatory and reported by astronomer Bill Ryan. It seems likely that as additional observations further shrink the uncertainty region of this asteroid, the region will no longer intersect Mars and the impact probability will quickly drop to zero.

This is a serious blow: not just to the cause of wicked cool astronomical photography, but also to our ongoing war against the Martians, whose offensive tripod production will now continue dangerously unabated.

"We have something to say here. This is not strictly entertainment."

Christmas came a little late this year. Don't feel bad, one of my best gifts was the debut of Season 5 of The Wire tonight.

Look, I've been pretty much shouting at the rain about this show for five years. Half the APCB entries in this category are probably related to it. Every major TV critic and publication have described it as everything from "the best series on TV, period"[1] to "deserving of the Nobel Prize for Literature."[2] I may have turned a handful of people on to it, and if any of my blog entries compels someone to go get the first four seasons on DVD and check them out for themselves, I'll be happy.

But it's still a sad situation. This is the last season, according to creator David Simon, and I have to temper my enjoyment of each new episode with the realization that every week brings me one step closer to the end of a series that has been one of the only beacons of quality in a spectrum of televised crap. The Wire is the only show, bar none, that I go out of my way to make sure my ass is on the couch to catch every week at its appointed time; no TiVo, no tape. Make of that endorsement what you will.

For tonight, The Wife and I had crab cakes to celebrate, Baltimore-style. I got some 90 Minute Imperial IPA from Dogfish Head (a Delaware brewery would have to suffice, seeing as Spec's doesn't carry Baltimore City or Clipper City), and you couldn't slap the smile off my face at seeing Bunk, McNulty, Freamon, Bubbles, Carcetti, Marlo, Rawls, Daniels, Prop Joe, Carver, and Herc on my TV again.

I won't nag you folks again. Well, not until the series finale, and you have two months to watch the first four seasons before that happens, so get on it.

[1] Entertainment Weekly
[2] Joe Klein

Updates

This year will be the 5th anniversary - ye gods - of APCB, and I'm looking into sprucing things up a bit around here. To that end, I really need to update my freaking blogroll, so if you or some of your Hawaiian Tropic swimsuit model friends have linked here, leave me a comment and I'll add you post-haste.

In God We Tru$t

The guy in line ahead of me at the post office was wearing an interesting t-shirt.

FRONT
I am BLESSED...

BACK
I have been empowered to SUCCEED and anointed to PROSPER.

Must be one big eye on that needle.

And the winners are...(HFCS)

After much agonizing debate (and plenty of Doug Harris' 18-year old scotch), the Houston Film Critics Society has selected their 2007 awards winners:

Best Picture - "No Country For Old Men"
Best Director of a Motion Picture - Tim Burton, "Sweeney Todd"
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role - Daniel Day Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role - Julie Christie, "Away From Her"
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role - Javier Bardem, "No Country For Old Men"
Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role - Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone"
Best Performance by an Ensemble Cast - "Hairspray"
Best Screenplay - Diablo Cody, "Juno"
Best Animated Film - "Ratatouille"
Best Cinematography - Roger Deakins, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
Best Documentary Feature - "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters"
Best Foreign Language Film - "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Best Original Score - "Atonement" by Dario Marianelli
Best Original Song- "Falling Slowly" from "Once"
Honorary Texan Award - Joel and Ethan Coen
Outstanding Achievement in Cinema - Philip Seymour Hoffman (for appearing in "The Savages," "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," and "Charlie Wilson's War")
Outstanding Achievement in Cinema - The Greenway Three Theatre, for over thirty years of service to Houston's art-house film community

I'm mostly in agreement with these selections, with the exception of Burton and Cody. I'd have placed Sidney Lumet, Sean Penn, and the Coens higher on the director listing, and Cody's screenplay had me wishing I lived in the Amazon so I could grab some army ants and let them devour my eardrums.

Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad, I'm just having a really hard time understanding all the accolades for Juno.

Also glad to see King of Kong on there. I lobbied hard for it.

The Houston Film Critics Society's Top Ten Films for 2007

1. No Country For Old Men
2. Juno
3. Atonement
4. Michael Clayton
5. Into the Wild
6. Sweeney Todd
7. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
8. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
9. Charlie Wilson's War
10. I'm Not There

I can't tell you how happy I am Juno didn't end up being our Best Picture, or how annoyed I am that it ranked as high as #2.

And if anyone's wondering why There Will Be Blood didn't make it, it's because the only screening was scheduled for us three days before Christmas. I know I wasn't the only one who couldn't make it.

"I wanna live in Los Angeles
Not the one in Los Angeles"

The Los Angeles Times, has an article today about 2007's Crankiest Critics. It's a brief piece, highlighting those annoying movie reviewers who "offer contrarian takes on some of 2007's most beloved films." I was (sort of) surprised to see my name listed, especially in association with the pull quote they used from my Bourne Ultimatum review:

'This isn't us.' It isn't? You mean the Central Intelligence Agency, when not failing to accurately assess the stability of the Eastern Bloc or gauge Al Qaeda's capacity to attack the mainland United States, hasn't maintained a 60-year campaign of destabilization, murder and deception? Wow.

True, I found the CIA chief's attempts to distance herself from the bad guy laughable in light of the Agency's history, but come on...I still gave the movie 3 1/2 stars.

And why do I have a sinking feeling this is the closest I'll ever come to writing for the L.A. Times?