A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

You're doing it wrong

And by "it," I mean "practicing Christianity:"

Plunging world stock markets have produced reactions from bewilderment to terror among traders, but one group believes the financial crisis requires an altogether different response -- prayer.

On the anniversary of the 1929 Wall Street Crash, a cross-denominational 100-strong group of Christians united in City Temple Church in London's financial district on Wednesday to pray for an end to market instability and ask God that economies should not enter a 1930s-style Great Depression.

Carrying a banner depicting a huge lion -- symbolising the biblical Lion of Judah, or Jesus -- with one paw on a bull and other on a bear, the group then headed to the London Stock Exchange, epicentre of the UK's quaking financial system.

Awesome. And then there's this group practicing a "laying on hands" on that big ass Wall Street bull. I'm no big city Bible scholar, but this seems...off, somehow.

Might want to do some brushing up on that first Commandment. And then there's this:

Dramatic examples of people whose life has been changed by a religious experience directly linked to the credit crisis are so far lacking, but religious groups are starting to see new interest from those on the outside.

St Peter's Barge, a floating church based near the gleaming towers of the Canary Wharf district's once-mighty banks, says it has seen more new faces at lunchtime talks aimed at bankers and other professionals on topics such as the credit crisis.

Check please.

These things I believe

Roger Ebert got a lot of shit for his review of Tru Loved, which he stopped watching - initially - after eight minutes (he has since viewed the entire movie and appended that review to the original). He's now vowed never again to write a review of a film he hasn't watched in its entirety (I can't remember how often I've reviewed a movie I've walked out of, but I always try to disclose the fact when I do, which...sort of counts for something).

Anyway, the comments on that entry prompted him to lay out his rules for movie critics.

Advise the readers well.

I don't know how adequately I fulfill this requirement, but thanks to my liberal use of profanity, I'm pretty sure readers are never confused about how I feel about a particular movie.

Provide a sense of the experience.

I don't go all AICN and describe my day up to the point of the screening in minute detail, but I could probably do better in this department. Every review from here on out will include a detailed recap of my drive to the theater and the demeanor of the ticket taker.

Keep track of your praise.

This isn't usually a problem. I can count on two hands the number of times I've used the phrase "one of the best films of the year" since 2004. And anyway, everybody knows 'best of' lists are harder to write than the other kind.

Do the math. If one week you state, "'Mr. Untouchable' makes 'American Gangster' look like a fairy tale," and the next week we say, "American Gangster" was "Goodfellas" for "the next generation," then you must conclude that "Mr. Untouchable" is better than "Goodfellas."

I included the whole rule because it's hilarious.

Respect the reader's time.

This is a dicier proposition. I try and make it a point to keep my reviews to 500-750 words, but I can't promise each word will be equally worth reading.

Do not make challenges you are cannot to back up.

The only "challenge" I've ever issued to people is to avoid shitty movies. And they've disappointed me every time.

Respect the reader's money.

Again, I've tried. That fans of Date Movie don't respect their own income stream isn't my problem.

Beware of verbal parallelism.

...I like stories.

Trailers. Have nothing to do with them. Gene Siskel hated them so much he would stand outside a theater until they were over.

Jesus, I wish. They're the scandalous addiction I can't seem to shake. Speaking of, have you seen the latest one for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince?

Be wary of freebies.

I get flown to/put up at deadCENTER and I get passes to SXSW to cover the festival. I've accepted a couple of "after-party" invites for certain movies, one of which I liked, one I didn't. The one I didn't, I deigned to review. That was shortly before I vowed never to accept such an invite again.

Junkets, however, are the domain of critics occupying a different strata than us bargain basement Film Threat guys.

Accept no favors.

Yeeaaahh...this isn't really a problem. Oh, do free half-sheet posters count?

No commercial endorsements.

This is really the only place Ebert sounds a bit out of touch, as he's just about the only remaining movie critic any company would even consider paying to shill their product.

I, however, would happily endorse Stone Brewing Co. or New West Records.

Be prudent with free DVDs.

As a member of both the OFCS and the HFCS, I receive end-of-year "for your consideration" screeners. I don't sell them - not just because they're coded to me, but because eBay is a huge pain in the ass - but yeah...I let friends borrow them. I still buy DVDs with rapacious abandon, much to The Wife's chagrin.

No advertisements.

Again, this isn't an issue for the 99.9% of us who would donate a kidney just to get a sniff of a network TV gig.

Be prepared to give a negative review.

AKA, the Pete Hammond Factor. As one of the Los Angeles Times' "crankiest critics" of 2007, I feel pretty safe in checking this one off.

No posing for photos!

Oops.

Sundance '04. In all fairness, I think Danny Glover was fucking thrilled to be corralled for a pic by the guy who told him Lethal Weapon's Roger Murtaugh was "totally better than Jesus."

I...actually want my MTV

I guess we've come full circle. You can finally see videos on MTV again.

Well, MTVMusic.com, that is.

This looks like a fairly recent rollout, as the number of views on a lot of the videos (over 20,000 available) is under 10. They're better quality than YouTube, as well, though there are some pretty glaring omissions (no "She Blinded Me with Science," or "Flight of Icarus," which was the only Maiden video the network played for three years). I'm not going to pat MTV on the back for finally putting videos online, but this is a pretty nifty find.

And it seems nobody sought out Megadeth's "Peace Sells" before me. "This is the news!"

Oh Dave, you magnificent now born-again douchebag.

I'll dig around in Vintage Videos for a while (sweet, "Walking in My Shoes"), at least until the network decides to replace everything with Real World marathons.

Where were you in '82?

Thanks to a day listening to nothing but First Wave '80s alternative on Sirius, I've decided to Godwin my own blog...Peter Godwin, that is:

To answer the question presented in the title, I was probably seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark for the 27th time.

"So, hopefully we'll make a difference."

"A little...fucking difference."

I like to swear. This isn't a big deal, except that I have a kid, and even though She Who Shall Not Be Named isn't exactly what you'd call a conversational little girl, she has a great memory. Many are the times she's regaled us in the car with verbatim recitations of her favorite Backyardigans or Elmo's World episode. She's also fond of TV theme songs, most recently Malcolm in the Middle, which is what every parent wants to hear from their offspring.

True story: In June of 2005, I was bustling her out the door to go to Swim Class (or, as it's known at that age, Splash the Shit Out of Dad and Hopefully Not Freak Out in the Pool 101) when I locked my keys in the house. After a futile check for an open window (curse you, crippling paranoia), I blurted "Fuck!" SWSNBN took it and ran, tearing off in circles around the front yard chirping, "Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck" until I could distract her with grapes.

Post-crash, she's not that imitative (of us) anymore. And even though parenting a child with a rare neurological disorder presents a different set of issues than raising "normal" kids, a household that sounds like a Quentin Tarantino movie isn't advisable for anyone. So we continue to limit profanity to after SWSNBN's bedtime and during Presidential debates.

The hardest part for me is coming up with alternatives that don't make you sound like Ned Flanders (then again, "diddly" is a fun addition to most words). I've made do with "freaking" instead of "fucking," "jesus marimba" instead of "jesus fucking christ," and have even toyed with "son of a whore," though I'm not convinced that's any better than the original. And just last week, The Wife and I used "cluster frog" several times in one conversation.

Any other suggestions? Don't make us resort to "doggone it," I beseech you.

No election home

Voted today. Walked to the Harris County Administration Building at 1001 Preston, got in line at 10:24, was out the door at 10:29. The only glitch wa caused by my last name, which neither the DPS nor Paul Bettencourt can spell correctly.

As for who I voted for, I don't think there's any secret about my Presidential leanings. So of course I wrote in LaRouche.

For Your Review - October 17-19, 2008

After about a six-week Ike hiatus, I'm back writing reviews for Film Threat. Huzzah.

Body of Lies ** - Maybe Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe should stop collaborating.

The Secret Life of Bees ** - Who knew single black women in 1964 South Carolina had it so good?

Where no personal trainer has gone before

Engrage. I mean, engage:

Kirk's hair should never be that thick.

And heeeeere's Spock:

The nerd cred is pretty well-established: Shaun of the Dead is Scotty, Sylar from Heroes is Spock, Harold (minus Kumar) is Sulu, the (first) Hulk is the bad guy, and...the romantic interest from Princess Diaries 2 is the captain. Guess you can't win 'em all.

I wasn't really looking forward to this, and then I checked the cast and noticed one of the roles is "Orion Slave Girl." That's good for two stars in my review right there.

Fuck Joe the Plumber

I was so desperate for a respite after the 98th time McCain/Obama brought up JtP I was actually begging The Wife to click over to the Project Runway finale. Seriously, both candidates' tax plans are pretty shitty for the lowest of the low incomes, and yes, guys in Joe's bracket still do better off under McCain, but a $7K cut isn't going to help pay more more employees unless they're undocumented illegals.

But I'm sure many blue collar voters can sympathize with a guy making $250K a year.

I also like how McCain emotionally reminded us of Nancy Reagan's injury, when the Reagans hated his guts. Or that Obama apparently lacked the stones to play the Keating Five trump card when McCain brought up Ayers. Again. Or that McCain - the special needs candidate - can't tell the difference between Down's Syndrome and autism. Or how he doesn't seem to realize a commercial criticizing a position isn't an "attack ad." Or how being "eloquent" is now an offense worthy of mockery following eight years of incoherent speechifying from the White House. Or, or, or.

Less than three weeks to go. I hope my liver can survive.

How to impede in advertising

Introducing Honda's newest hatchback, the Belfry Fit:

Somebody's angling pretty hard for that Batman 3 product placement.

Digits

I lost my cell phone and, annoyingly, every number I saved in it for the last three years. If I had yours - and you probably know if I did - could you send it to me at my contact e-mail address? I promise a six-month moratorium on drunken texts.

Except for Don.

Everything's coming up Milhouse.

Being an admittedly negative son of a bitch, I didn't have high hopes for today's Red River Shoot-Out (I'll call it the "Red River Rivalry" when Eddie officially recognizes David Lee Roth as the heart and soul of Van Halen). Oklahoma QB Sam Bradford has looked nigh unstoppable, and UT's pass defense was something like 96th in the nation. Happily, we actually managed to run the ball in our big fat win:

On an afternoon dominated by quarterbacks and wild swings of momentum in one of college football's most emotional rivalries, No. 5 Texas got a fourth-quarter shot of adrenaline from its ground game Saturday afternoon to take a 45-35 win over top-ranked Oklahoma.

Cody Johnson had three short scoring runs for the Longhorns, two of them in the second half, as Texas fought off the passing of Sam Bradford, who had five scoring passes for Oklahoma at the newly renovated Cotton Bowl.

Johnson's second TD run was set up by Colt McCoy's 37-yard dart to Jordan Shipley, and his third came on a two-yarder after Chris Ogbonnaya ran 62 yards to the Oklahoma 1-yard line.

Any year Texas beats OU is a good one, but this month is only half over. UT still has to play Missouri and Oklahoma State, and then Texas Tech. #3 Mizzou helpfully choked against OSU tonight (can we please shut the fuck up about Chase Daniel's Heisman hopes now?), and Florida clobbered #4 LSU, which would appear to be good news, except I wouldn't be surprised if they managed to install #2 Alabama in the top spot.

So if Texas comes through the next three weeks unscathed - and that's a tall order - I think a second national championship in four years isn't out of the question. McCoy looks solid, nobody can run against them, and the rest of the Big 12 showed some serious vulnerabilities today.

But talk to me next month.

At least it wasn't Jethro Tull

She Who Shall Not Be Named and I were in Whole Foods earlier today, searching for these GFCF vanilla sandwich cookies that apparently only exist at this one store in Tampa, and this older WF employee in the act of stocking shelves started singing a familiar song:

So ya
Thought ya
Might like to
Go to the show.
To feel that warm thrill of confusion,
That space cadet glow.
I've got some bad news for you sunshine,
Pink isn't well, he stayed back at the hotel
And they sent us along as a surrogate band
We're gonna find out where you folks really stand.

I'd been waiting for a chance to make a humorous interjection the whole time, and seized my chance...

Pete: Are you planning on singing that next verse?
Whole Foods Guy: I love that song, but I'd probably get in trouble.

For those who don't know, the next line of Pink Floyd's "In the Flesh" goes

Are there any queers in the theater tonight?
Get 'em up against the wall.

No word on how he would've approached the "coon" stanza.

Hello Balls - 10/9/2008

Back from my Ike-induced hiatus, I present you with a fresh helping of Hair Balls, You can thank me later.

Top Five Beatdowns in Houston Sports (10/9/2008) - My first entry for the Press' sports blog.
The Disappearing Local Film Critic (10/9/2008)
NASA at 50: Five Bad Astronaut Movies (10/2/2008)
When Trees Attack: In Movies & Real Life (10/1/2008)
Houston on the TV: The Top Five (9/11/2008)

Older entries after the jump.

Top Five Houstonians as Hurricanes (8/29/2008)
The Top Five Ballsiest Actors from Texas (8/27/2008)
Texas Horror Movies: The Top Five (8/18/2008)
Houston Sports Movies: The Top Five (8/14/2008)
Chuck Norris Reaches Out And Touches: The Top Five (8/11/2008)
It's Freaking Hot - So Watch Some Cold Movies (8/7/2008)
Movies For Your Hurricane Party Tonight (8/4/2008)
A Wish List for Austin's Movie Memorabilia Sale (7/31/2008)
Hollywood Destroys Houston: The Top Five (7/30/2008)
Houston as a Movie Stand-In: The Top Five (7/22/2008)

"I don't care about losing all the money, it's losing all the stuff."

Three weeks in, and the crew should be starting on the big build (or as I'm calling it, "Repairway to Heaven"). I finally got "the office" cleaned out, which quickly turned into a sort of violent nerd purge, as I realized how much crap i'd accumulated in the last 20-odd years.

Sure, the losses were pretty significant. Just about every movie poster I'd collected since high school didn't make it (unless it was in a tube, which means I'm still the proud owner of an Elektra one-sheet). Bye bye to my original Terminator and Buckaroo Banzai posters, as well as most of the Simpsons 7-11 memorabilia The Thing That Walks Like a Man procured for me in California.

The Han Solo standee also didn't make it. In the end, water accomplished what Boba Fett never could.

Nothing's irreplaceable, though I'll withhold comment on how likely I am to go out and find another copy of that 27 Dresses poster. And honestly, as I was stuffing debris into garbage bags I found myself getting more and more annoyed. Why the fuck am I carting this shit around with me? Am I really going to go back and leaf through these back issues of Barracuda? How many times in the last ten years have I re-read Uncut's punk retrospective? Two Kenner Millennium Falcons? Seriously?

Three hours and a half dozen trash bags later, here are a few items that I'm happy to say did make it through the tempest:

+ My autographed picture of Marlin Perkins, obtained after striking up a (brief) correspondence with him following a chance meeting at the Hogel Zoo in Salt Lake City circa 1976.

+ A patch of Astroturf from old Busch Stadium. I nodded reverently as my dad told me, "Vince Coleman might have spit on this very piece."

+ The Yuengling poster Peenman sent me last year. It will have a place of honor in the new rumpus room.

+ Snoopy - My oldest remaining toy/stuffed animal, received as a present some time in the early '70s and liberated from the clutches of Evil Little Sister who tried to abscond with him when I was in college. I'll take a picture later, as the closest I could come up with during a cursory online search was this:

He got some water on him, but two wash cycles (and one lost eyebrow - his, not mine) later, he's as close to good as new a 30-year old toy can be.

+ The Opus Collective - Including Shower Cap Opus, given to me by my Sadie Hawkins date senior year. I really appreciate the effort she went to in order to obtain the "Save Water, Shower with a Friend" button pinned to his towel.

And of course, the sickly magnolia tree that's been dying an agonizing death in our front yard for the last three years came through without a scratch.

"I live in a single room above a bowling alley and below another bowling alley."

I mentioned that, post-Ike, the family is living in an apartment while repairs are being performed on the house. What I failed to mention is what a swinging joint this particular complex is. For while we've seen a few younger couples with kids, the overwhelming majority of tenants appear to be single folk in their mid to late 20s.

This is especially amusing at the pool, where the breakdown tends to be me, She Who Shall Not Be Named, and a dozen or so preening fuckwits with boring tattoos (tribal arm crap, flames-on-the-calf, and Chinese characters that undoubtedly stand for "Occidental skank"). They don't stoop to actually enter the pool, of course, so I just tell SWSNBN to keep her head down and hope she isn't at a stage where she'll be impressed by a butterfly surrounded by stars etched on the small of a woman's back.

But there are some benefits. We're closer to downtown and to SWSNBN's school, there's a hike-and-bike trail nearby, and we only actually share one wall with strangers. It's a bit of a departure from my college/grad school days of aprtment living, in that every room actually has furniture in it, and there's actually food in the refrigerator.

Then an incident last week took me all the way back to 1988.

I usually leave for work before 6 AM. It's a scheduling necessity, and the 15-minute commute more or less makes up for having to go to bed before midnight most nights. I've also noticed few people in the complex stirring at that hour, except for Thursday morning. I was driving out of the gate when I saw two young ladies who live a few units down returning - on foot - from some unknown assignation. They were still decked out in their evening togs, though hair and makeup looked rather worse for wear, and they were carrying their high heels (the better to navigate the treacherous parking lot).

They seemed mildly surprised that someone was leaving, but smiled briefly as I gave them a big shit-eating grin and a wave. Which got me wondering, is it really a walk of shame if you're not, you know, ashamed?

"Quimby: If you were running for mayor, he'd vote for you."

I see you there, stocking the bar and licking your chops in anticipation of tonight's VP debate/bloodbath. You've watched those YouTube snippets of Sarah Palin unable to answer Katie Couric's softball questions (and probably those Miss Alaska talent show clips as well) and are positively salivating at the way Joe Biden is going to "pwn" her ass.

Not a chance.

For starters, the McCain camp has been level-setting for weeks, "leaking" alleged rumblings about her lack of preparedness and predicting disaster Thursday night. Expectations are so low for Palin that as long as she doesn't show up drunk, it'll be declared a victory.

And the newly Palin-friendly debate format won't hurt her either:

The Obama and McCain campaigns have agreed to an unusual free-flowing format for the three televised presidential debates, which begin Friday, but the McCain camp fought for and won a much more structured approach for the questioning at the vice-presidential debate, advisers to both campaigns said Saturday.

At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates.

McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive.

But, but she's so experienced.

My prediction: Palin remembers her lines. Well enough, at least, that her supporters can claim it as proof that she's "ready to lead." The format will also reign in Biden's bloviating, and he'll mostly keep his tongue. He probably won't be able to resist a couple of body blows, which will likely prompt McCain to step in once again to defend his pit bull from the nasty Democrats.

Me? I'll be drinking myself blind. Which, come to think of it, is how I spend most election cycles.

"And when there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand."

Greetings from Insensitivity, TX:

What are the odds privatizing Social Security comes up in the debates?