1. Is it Ocean's 13 or Ocean's Thirteen?
2. A lot of what happens in the movie just doesn't make a lot of logical sense. You just have to go with it. If the filmmakers say some chemical doo-dad that Matt Damon's character wears will make the Ellen Barkin character swoon with unquenchable lust, so be it. But it often goes beyond that. There's also a lot of plot points here that hinge on happenstance that simply could not have been predicted or planned for, not even by seasoned con men like this.
3. The movie's a lot of fun, but very long. We really didn't need the Mexican worker strike.
4. No matter how many times The Cheese Fry saw Brad Pitt and Matt Damon talk in the TV spots about how "the nose plays," it's still damn funny. And you know what? The nose does play.
5. Two very funny Oprah Winfrey gags.
6. With their silky smiles and perfectly-fitted designer wardrobe, George Clooner and Brad Pitt make it all seem so effortless. Bastards.
7. The cinematography - it's director Steven Soderbergh working as his own DP under the psuedonym Peter Andrews - is spectacular, all strange contrasting colors and lights. It's like looking at paintings.
8. Ellen Barkin's great, true, but we could have used a few more women.
9. The premise, you have to admit, is very clever: instead of stealing from a casino, the boys rig the games so that the house loses, thereby punishing the very tan bad guy Al Pacino.
10. The Don Cheadle as the Robby Knievel-style daredevil bit didn't work.
11. The mug shot morphing that happened in that same scene, however, did work. Hilarious.
12. In the end, this is a movie with charm and style to burn. The epitome of cool. And so the film's chief strength is also its chief weakness - it's all sizzle and no steak. These aren't characters so much as chess pieces to be moved here and there to wow us with the film's narrative gymnastics. The pleasure doesn't come from worrying if Danny Ocean and his ever expanding crew will succeed. They're so ridiculously unflappable that success is essentially a given. The only pleasure to be had instead comes from seeing how this mousetrap contraption - which consists of a great many moving parts (did we mention the diamond necklaces that also have to be stolen?) - will work together.
6.12.2007
Cootie Queens and Lint Lickers
Following in the footsteps of Mac vs. PC ("I'm a Mac." "And I'm a PC.") and the Geico cavemen comes another ingeniously oddball commercial that demands repeat viewing.
We're talking, of course, about Orbit Gum's campaign to suggest that its gum is so refreshing that it will clean the dirtiest of mouths. The dirt-eating secretary was funny, yes, but the grand prize surely goes to a spot called "The Affair." You can find it here, here, and here.
Funniest Lines from "The Affair"1. "Who are you calling a cootie queen? You lint-licker!"
2. "Stinky McStink Face."
3. "What the French, toast?"
4. "Pickle you kumquat!"
5. "You Hoboken."
We're talking, of course, about Orbit Gum's campaign to suggest that its gum is so refreshing that it will clean the dirtiest of mouths. The dirt-eating secretary was funny, yes, but the grand prize surely goes to a spot called "The Affair." You can find it here, here, and here.
Funniest Lines from "The Affair"1. "Who are you calling a cootie queen? You lint-licker!"
2. "Stinky McStink Face."
3. "What the French, toast?"
4. "Pickle you kumquat!"
5. "You Hoboken."
6.10.2007
Knee-jerk review: "Knocked Up"
1. Not as consistently hilarious as The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but very funny nonetheless.
2. This probably won't make her a bankable movie star just yet, but Katherine Heigl's definitely well on her way. She's very funny and likable. If anyone could inspire a pothead loser to turn his life around, it'd be her.
3. An added benefit: remembering the late, great, one-season TV shows of director Judd Apatow "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared." Much of the Knocked Up cast worked on one of those (or both).
4. The Cheese Fry has obtained real-world confirmation that for (some) women adultery indeed isn't as grave a crime as lying to one's wife in order to sneak off for a fantasy baseball draft. Incredible but true.
5. Paul Rudd continues to be underrated. Possible best line of the movie: "You look like a cholo dressed up for Easter." Possible runner up: "There are five different kinds of chairs in this hotel room."
6. Who knew Leslie Mann could be this great?
7. Ben's right: who genuinely likes Steely Dan? Who even knows a Steely Dan song?
8. Is that really how you get pink eye? Gross.
9. We bet the "missing gynecologist" sequence feels a little too scary and real, doesn't it, new parents and soon-to-be new parents?
10. There's one quick cutaway shot here that you won't believe.
2. This probably won't make her a bankable movie star just yet, but Katherine Heigl's definitely well on her way. She's very funny and likable. If anyone could inspire a pothead loser to turn his life around, it'd be her.
3. An added benefit: remembering the late, great, one-season TV shows of director Judd Apatow "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared." Much of the Knocked Up cast worked on one of those (or both).
4. The Cheese Fry has obtained real-world confirmation that for (some) women adultery indeed isn't as grave a crime as lying to one's wife in order to sneak off for a fantasy baseball draft. Incredible but true.
5. Paul Rudd continues to be underrated. Possible best line of the movie: "You look like a cholo dressed up for Easter." Possible runner up: "There are five different kinds of chairs in this hotel room."
6. Who knew Leslie Mann could be this great?
7. Ben's right: who genuinely likes Steely Dan? Who even knows a Steely Dan song?
8. Is that really how you get pink eye? Gross.
9. We bet the "missing gynecologist" sequence feels a little too scary and real, doesn't it, new parents and soon-to-be new parents?
10. There's one quick cutaway shot here that you won't believe.
5.27.2007
Knee-jerk review: "28 Weeks Later"
1. The term "kick ass" comes to mind.
2. Now that's what the Cheese Fry calls a kiss of death. When you see the movie, you'll know.
3. Remember that technically these folks are not zombies - they're infected with the rage virus. There is a difference.
4. The director - Juan Carlos Fresnadillo - is definitely someone to watch. This is a movie with lots of energy and style. Fresnadillo shoots many of the action scenes here with shaky, claustrophobic close-ups that makes it impossible to know how close the threats are to the characters (i.e. you're always worried that something bad's looming just out of the frame). This is particularly true of the harrowing opening sequence.
5. But even a satisfying movie like this doesn't always play fair - one major plot point requires that an important and potentially dangerous character be left completely unattended by the authorities in a way that is wholly implausible. Oh well.
6. It's nice to see Jeremy Renner play a good guy. His specialty is usually sweaty, duplicitous punks.
7. The subway night-vision sequence is, shall we say, intense.
8. Yes, one can definitely read this as an allegory of the war in Iraq as the American military in trying to help repopulate England A) puts into place a deeply flawed (and in some ways not very well thought out) occupation plan that backfires in horrible ways and B) ultimately must destroy a city in order to "save" it.
9. The film's better than 28 Days Later, which unfortuately suffered from an awkward, plodding third act involving that military detachment.
2. Now that's what the Cheese Fry calls a kiss of death. When you see the movie, you'll know.
3. Remember that technically these folks are not zombies - they're infected with the rage virus. There is a difference.
4. The director - Juan Carlos Fresnadillo - is definitely someone to watch. This is a movie with lots of energy and style. Fresnadillo shoots many of the action scenes here with shaky, claustrophobic close-ups that makes it impossible to know how close the threats are to the characters (i.e. you're always worried that something bad's looming just out of the frame). This is particularly true of the harrowing opening sequence.
5. But even a satisfying movie like this doesn't always play fair - one major plot point requires that an important and potentially dangerous character be left completely unattended by the authorities in a way that is wholly implausible. Oh well.
6. It's nice to see Jeremy Renner play a good guy. His specialty is usually sweaty, duplicitous punks.
7. The subway night-vision sequence is, shall we say, intense.
8. Yes, one can definitely read this as an allegory of the war in Iraq as the American military in trying to help repopulate England A) puts into place a deeply flawed (and in some ways not very well thought out) occupation plan that backfires in horrible ways and B) ultimately must destroy a city in order to "save" it.
9. The film's better than 28 Days Later, which unfortuately suffered from an awkward, plodding third act involving that military detachment.
Top 6 Lucky Charms (c. 1989)
In order of most to least magically delicious.
1. Green clovers
2. Yellow moons
3. Pink hearts
4. Blue diamonds
5. Orange stars
6. Purple horeshoes
1. Green clovers
2. Yellow moons
3. Pink hearts
4. Blue diamonds
5. Orange stars
6. Purple horeshoes
5.24.2007
Things you probably didn’t know about “The Price Is Right”
* There are people who camp out all night on the filthy sidewalks of Fairfax Avenue just to be assured of a seat. Tents, sleeping bags, ice chests... it's like a Yosemite campground out there. Rumor has it that the line can sometimes be 20 people long at 8pm the night before. At 2:00am, it can be 180 people long.
* The studio (Studio 33, a.k.a. the Bob Barker Studio) seats about 350 people. And yes, it looks much smaller than it does on television. Tiny, in fact. Part of the reason is that the studio's seating is so flat rather than raked. It's like a shoe box.
* Show announcer Rich Fields waves his left arm as he's reading the plugs, urging the audience to clap for the "items up for bid" and the pricing game prizes. He'll also walk out on stage during a pricing game and make an exaggarated "what do you think?" gesture to encourage everyone to start shouting help to the contestants.
* Your hands will get tired from all the clapping. And then you realize you're clapping for an ugly wall clock.
* Each contestant is indeed "interviewed" in the loosest sense of the word prior to show taping. To work through 300 people like this takes about 2 hours. You're set up police line-up style in groups of 12 or so and forced to chat with an unctious contestant coordinator who's equal parts used car salesman and standup comic. After working down the line saying hello and asking a couple of questions, you're dismissed and he confers with his cohort about who made the cut. But with 300 people and only 9 possible slots, the odds ain't so good.
* You know how the contestants on stage will always bend over and peer out at the audience for help like some kind of mental patient? They're trying to see around all the cameras and crew. That stage is tiny enough as it is, but during the show it's crammed full of three big video cameras and maybe 10 crew people. The only empty space is what's in the shot. From the audience you can sometimes barely see the game being played.
* Once a prize is shown on camera and the camera cuts away, stagehands are already wheeling it off. That includes the pricing games. This is probably why the contestants sometimes ask "What kind of car is it?" The doors have already closed on the car in question so the stagehands can start setting up the next game.
* If you're sitting on the left side of the audience, can’t see the showcase turntable where the two final contestants stand and Bob wraps up the show with his "spayed and neutered" line.
* Because the audience is going so nuts at the top of the show - it's hard to even know for sure that the show's started they've got everyone whipped up into such a noisy frenzy - as Rich Fields calls the first four contestants' name, they also hold up with signs with the names spelled out so you can see it if you don't hear it. By the way, during this part of the show, you don't stand up unless your name is called. That's apparently an official rule.
* Before the showcase, Rich and Bob specifically ask the audience to "ooh" and "ahh" over the showcase prizes, rather than simply clap. Weird.
* Between games, when the taping's paused and Bob's talking to the audience and taking questions, a big curtain drops down right in front of contestants' row so no one can see the next game being set up on stage.
* The studio seats aren’t bad – worn red canvas, like what you’d find in an old movie theater.
* A sample of the Barker wit during the commerical "stop downs." Question: "What kind of drink do you like?" Bob: "What have you got?" Question: "What will you miss most when you retire?" Bob: "My money." Question: "Will you sign my shirt?" Bob: "I can't sign your shirt - I’m working here!"
* It's a long and complicated process to sit in the audience. At around 6am, they start handing out pink "Order of Arrival" paper tickets, which are numbered. Then at 7:30am you bring those tickets with you inside CBS to a big holding pen outside the studio. It's covered like a shed. Long benches. Once you're in the shed, they line you up in order of your pink tickets. 1-1-50 over there, 51-100 over here... And slowly now the pages work their way through those lines and, using a black marker, write a number on your actual CBS "Price Is Right" ticket. When this happens you turn in your pink ticket. (The pink ticket seems to be a needless element in the process - why not write on the actual ticket to begin with out on Fairfax?) Now you're free again to leave, but you must come back to the shed at 10:30am. At that point you cannot leave the CBS lot. You're stuck. Speeches are given about the rules and procedures. And then the pages start working their way down the long lines again - everyone's still lined up in order - giving out blue cards with a number and a space to write your name. Then the pages come through again a half hour later and hand out the yellow price tag name badge sticker. By now it's 12:30pm. And then the interviews begin (see above).
* CBS refuses to ever guarantee you a seat. That said, the pages will tell you that getting the iconic yellow price tag name sticker just about “seals the deal.”
* The CBS gift shop - available in the shed to contestants while they wait - is lame. It's just about as lame as the three shelves and two clothes racks that make up the NBC gift shop available to audience members of "The Tonight Show." The networks are missing a prime market here.
* You really do have to witness for yourself the intense cult of Bob Barker to truly appreciate the devotion middle Americans have for this guy.
* Yes, they have one of those old-school applause signs hanging in front of the stage.
* For a moment before someone turns up the sound effect, the Big Wheel's arrow just click-clacks in a very plastic and uninspiring way. But the "dings" of a bid popping up come through loud and clear every time.
* You have to provide a picture ID and a Social Security number to be eligible to be a contestant. And if you actually win a prize, you have 30 days to produce a copy of your actual Social Security card.
* Some enterprising character rents plastic chairs to the all-nighters lined up on Fairfax. Five bucks a chair. Their stack of chairs is about 12 feet tall. Do the math.
* Contestants must use the left-hand stairs to get up on stage because that's the direction the cameras are pointing.
* The studio (Studio 33, a.k.a. the Bob Barker Studio) seats about 350 people. And yes, it looks much smaller than it does on television. Tiny, in fact. Part of the reason is that the studio's seating is so flat rather than raked. It's like a shoe box.
* Show announcer Rich Fields waves his left arm as he's reading the plugs, urging the audience to clap for the "items up for bid" and the pricing game prizes. He'll also walk out on stage during a pricing game and make an exaggarated "what do you think?" gesture to encourage everyone to start shouting help to the contestants.
* Your hands will get tired from all the clapping. And then you realize you're clapping for an ugly wall clock.
* Each contestant is indeed "interviewed" in the loosest sense of the word prior to show taping. To work through 300 people like this takes about 2 hours. You're set up police line-up style in groups of 12 or so and forced to chat with an unctious contestant coordinator who's equal parts used car salesman and standup comic. After working down the line saying hello and asking a couple of questions, you're dismissed and he confers with his cohort about who made the cut. But with 300 people and only 9 possible slots, the odds ain't so good.
* You know how the contestants on stage will always bend over and peer out at the audience for help like some kind of mental patient? They're trying to see around all the cameras and crew. That stage is tiny enough as it is, but during the show it's crammed full of three big video cameras and maybe 10 crew people. The only empty space is what's in the shot. From the audience you can sometimes barely see the game being played.
* Once a prize is shown on camera and the camera cuts away, stagehands are already wheeling it off. That includes the pricing games. This is probably why the contestants sometimes ask "What kind of car is it?" The doors have already closed on the car in question so the stagehands can start setting up the next game.
* If you're sitting on the left side of the audience, can’t see the showcase turntable where the two final contestants stand and Bob wraps up the show with his "spayed and neutered" line.
* Because the audience is going so nuts at the top of the show - it's hard to even know for sure that the show's started they've got everyone whipped up into such a noisy frenzy - as Rich Fields calls the first four contestants' name, they also hold up with signs with the names spelled out so you can see it if you don't hear it. By the way, during this part of the show, you don't stand up unless your name is called. That's apparently an official rule.
* Before the showcase, Rich and Bob specifically ask the audience to "ooh" and "ahh" over the showcase prizes, rather than simply clap. Weird.
* Between games, when the taping's paused and Bob's talking to the audience and taking questions, a big curtain drops down right in front of contestants' row so no one can see the next game being set up on stage.
* The studio seats aren’t bad – worn red canvas, like what you’d find in an old movie theater.
* A sample of the Barker wit during the commerical "stop downs." Question: "What kind of drink do you like?" Bob: "What have you got?" Question: "What will you miss most when you retire?" Bob: "My money." Question: "Will you sign my shirt?" Bob: "I can't sign your shirt - I’m working here!"
* It's a long and complicated process to sit in the audience. At around 6am, they start handing out pink "Order of Arrival" paper tickets, which are numbered. Then at 7:30am you bring those tickets with you inside CBS to a big holding pen outside the studio. It's covered like a shed. Long benches. Once you're in the shed, they line you up in order of your pink tickets. 1-1-50 over there, 51-100 over here... And slowly now the pages work their way through those lines and, using a black marker, write a number on your actual CBS "Price Is Right" ticket. When this happens you turn in your pink ticket. (The pink ticket seems to be a needless element in the process - why not write on the actual ticket to begin with out on Fairfax?) Now you're free again to leave, but you must come back to the shed at 10:30am. At that point you cannot leave the CBS lot. You're stuck. Speeches are given about the rules and procedures. And then the pages start working their way down the long lines again - everyone's still lined up in order - giving out blue cards with a number and a space to write your name. Then the pages come through again a half hour later and hand out the yellow price tag name badge sticker. By now it's 12:30pm. And then the interviews begin (see above).
* CBS refuses to ever guarantee you a seat. That said, the pages will tell you that getting the iconic yellow price tag name sticker just about “seals the deal.”
* The CBS gift shop - available in the shed to contestants while they wait - is lame. It's just about as lame as the three shelves and two clothes racks that make up the NBC gift shop available to audience members of "The Tonight Show." The networks are missing a prime market here.
* You really do have to witness for yourself the intense cult of Bob Barker to truly appreciate the devotion middle Americans have for this guy.
* Yes, they have one of those old-school applause signs hanging in front of the stage.
* For a moment before someone turns up the sound effect, the Big Wheel's arrow just click-clacks in a very plastic and uninspiring way. But the "dings" of a bid popping up come through loud and clear every time.
* You have to provide a picture ID and a Social Security number to be eligible to be a contestant. And if you actually win a prize, you have 30 days to produce a copy of your actual Social Security card.
* Some enterprising character rents plastic chairs to the all-nighters lined up on Fairfax. Five bucks a chair. Their stack of chairs is about 12 feet tall. Do the math.
* Contestants must use the left-hand stairs to get up on stage because that's the direction the cameras are pointing.
5.19.2007
Hollywood Feuds
What they don't want you to know
The Hot Button's David Poland offers up an interesting list of ten things the Hollywood Studios don't want anyone to know about the business side of filmmaking. Numbers 1-5 and Numbers 6-10.
Knee-jerk review: "Spiderman 3"
1. Remember how the Batman movies started to suck when the filmmakers started cramming in too many villains? Same thing here.
2. That opening fight between the New Goblin and Spiderman could have been truly amazing if it were a little easier to follow what was happening. With the camera's unending swoops and swirls and spins, you're lucky if you can tell which way is up, much less understand the action. If they'd locked the camera down a couple of times they probably could have saved $8 million on special effects alone in that sequence.
3. The whole movie really is something of a disappointing mess.
4. If The Cheese Fry had to pick for Peter Parker, it'd be Bryce Dallas Howard's Gwen Stacy over Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane Parker. No contest.
5. Bruce Campbell's French maitre d' just about steals the movie.
6. The most ridiculous element: an incredibly dangerous particle accelerator contraption... that's located in a New York City suburb... and protected only by an eight-foot-tall cyclone fence. It's lazy writing.
7. The runaway crane scene is the film's best action moment.
8. There's a stale retread feel to the entire movie, particularly when it comes to Peter Parker's character. He's spent many months (maybe even years) by now as Spiderman, yet he still seems to be just as gawky and nerdy and clueless. How is this possible? How can the experience of being a, you know, superhero not have changed him?
9. If anyone wants to argue that Kirsten Dunst doesn't have strong acting chops, offer this up as Exhibit A.
10. You really do have to deduct points from a movie that dares to go to the temporary-short-term-amnesia well. You do realize this, right?
11. Spiderman 2 was the best of the series. Probably one of the greatest comic book films ever. And guess what? One villain.
12. It's pretty cool that Peter Parker uses what looks like a RadioShack police scanner to find crimes as they're being committed.
13. The secret to destroying Venom is also pretty cool.
14. For someone trying to maintain a secret identity, Peter Parker sure does take off his mask a lot in public places. He also leaps out of his apartment window in full Spidey suit.
15. The Daily Bugle scenes with J. Jonah Jameson have always been way over the top in these movies and in this one they're excessively so. J.K. Simmons' bellowing acting just grating.
16. There are some interesting themes here about revenge and forgiveness. If only they'd been more fleshed out.
17. The jazz bar scene where Peter Parker humiliates M.J. is just ridiculous. Worst part of the whole movie.
18. The film's record box office is somewhat disheartening - the lesson seems to be that "event" films will draw huge crowds no matter how good or bad they may be. Bad word of mouth can't put a dent in these blockbusters because people apparently want to experience it for themselves. This principle is solely responsible for the bombastic and mostly unwatchable Pirates of the Caribbean series. If a deeply flawed and unsatisfying movie like Spiderman 3 makes $150 million in three days, why would Hollywood ever attempt a more stringent effort at filmmaking quality control? If it ain't broke, why fix it?
2. That opening fight between the New Goblin and Spiderman could have been truly amazing if it were a little easier to follow what was happening. With the camera's unending swoops and swirls and spins, you're lucky if you can tell which way is up, much less understand the action. If they'd locked the camera down a couple of times they probably could have saved $8 million on special effects alone in that sequence.
3. The whole movie really is something of a disappointing mess.
4. If The Cheese Fry had to pick for Peter Parker, it'd be Bryce Dallas Howard's Gwen Stacy over Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane Parker. No contest.
5. Bruce Campbell's French maitre d' just about steals the movie.
6. The most ridiculous element: an incredibly dangerous particle accelerator contraption... that's located in a New York City suburb... and protected only by an eight-foot-tall cyclone fence. It's lazy writing.
7. The runaway crane scene is the film's best action moment.
8. There's a stale retread feel to the entire movie, particularly when it comes to Peter Parker's character. He's spent many months (maybe even years) by now as Spiderman, yet he still seems to be just as gawky and nerdy and clueless. How is this possible? How can the experience of being a, you know, superhero not have changed him?
9. If anyone wants to argue that Kirsten Dunst doesn't have strong acting chops, offer this up as Exhibit A.
10. You really do have to deduct points from a movie that dares to go to the temporary-short-term-amnesia well. You do realize this, right?
11. Spiderman 2 was the best of the series. Probably one of the greatest comic book films ever. And guess what? One villain.
12. It's pretty cool that Peter Parker uses what looks like a RadioShack police scanner to find crimes as they're being committed.
13. The secret to destroying Venom is also pretty cool.
14. For someone trying to maintain a secret identity, Peter Parker sure does take off his mask a lot in public places. He also leaps out of his apartment window in full Spidey suit.
15. The Daily Bugle scenes with J. Jonah Jameson have always been way over the top in these movies and in this one they're excessively so. J.K. Simmons' bellowing acting just grating.
16. There are some interesting themes here about revenge and forgiveness. If only they'd been more fleshed out.
17. The jazz bar scene where Peter Parker humiliates M.J. is just ridiculous. Worst part of the whole movie.
18. The film's record box office is somewhat disheartening - the lesson seems to be that "event" films will draw huge crowds no matter how good or bad they may be. Bad word of mouth can't put a dent in these blockbusters because people apparently want to experience it for themselves. This principle is solely responsible for the bombastic and mostly unwatchable Pirates of the Caribbean series. If a deeply flawed and unsatisfying movie like Spiderman 3 makes $150 million in three days, why would Hollywood ever attempt a more stringent effort at filmmaking quality control? If it ain't broke, why fix it?
5.16.2007
The Cheese Fry Hot 19 (TV Character Edition)
1 Tami Taylor
2 Dr. Juliet Burke
3 Brooke Davis
4 Melinda Gordon
5 Allison Dubois
6 Detective Olivia Benson
7 Niki/Jessica Sanders8 Tyra Collette
9 Kate Austen
10 Lorelai Gilmore
11 Sun Kwon
12 Dr. Isobel Stevens
13 Lieutenant Kara Thrace
14 Liz Lemon
15 Dr. Abby Lockhart16 Special Agent Samantha Spade17 Angela Martin
18 Calleigh Duquesne
19 Dr. Neela Rasgotra
2 Dr. Juliet Burke
3 Brooke Davis
4 Melinda Gordon
5 Allison Dubois
6 Detective Olivia Benson
7 Niki/Jessica Sanders8 Tyra Collette
9 Kate Austen
10 Lorelai Gilmore
11 Sun Kwon
12 Dr. Isobel Stevens
13 Lieutenant Kara Thrace
14 Liz Lemon
15 Dr. Abby Lockhart16 Special Agent Samantha Spade17 Angela Martin
18 Calleigh Duquesne
19 Dr. Neela Rasgotra
4.30.2007
Knee-jerk review: "Disturbia"
1. You can just hear the Diet-Coke-fueled pitch meeting: "It's Rear Window, see, but for teenagers!" Even so, the movie's smarter than you might expect.
2. Part of the reason is the considerable scruffy charisma of lead Shia LaBeouf.
3. The violent prologue may not be explicit, but it's definitely intense and scary. That's a pretty hard PG-13 scene.
4. David Morse is always good, isn't he?
5. How did Shia LeBeouf's character get his hands on the blueprints for the house next door? LocalBlueprints.com? There's hard to believe and then there's something laughable like this.
6. It's one thing to buy that a serial killer might build an extra room onto his house for grisly deeds, but what's with the creepy giant basement and then the cave-like sub-basement? When would he have time to build all of that? Why would he try to find the time to build all of that?
7. The garage door opener bit is clever.
8. The climax gets a little ridiculous, but that's unfortunately just the way these kinds of things usually end.
9. Sarah Roemer's bikini scenes add, shall we say, extra value.
10. That's a pretty cool title, isn't it?
11. Always fun to see local Los Angeles news anchors pimping themselves out for fake newscasts in movies.
12. Seriously, if you hit someone in the head with an aluminum baseball bat, you're probably going to kill them.
2. Part of the reason is the considerable scruffy charisma of lead Shia LaBeouf.
3. The violent prologue may not be explicit, but it's definitely intense and scary. That's a pretty hard PG-13 scene.
4. David Morse is always good, isn't he?
5. How did Shia LeBeouf's character get his hands on the blueprints for the house next door? LocalBlueprints.com? There's hard to believe and then there's something laughable like this.
6. It's one thing to buy that a serial killer might build an extra room onto his house for grisly deeds, but what's with the creepy giant basement and then the cave-like sub-basement? When would he have time to build all of that? Why would he try to find the time to build all of that?
7. The garage door opener bit is clever.
8. The climax gets a little ridiculous, but that's unfortunately just the way these kinds of things usually end.
9. Sarah Roemer's bikini scenes add, shall we say, extra value.
10. That's a pretty cool title, isn't it?
11. Always fun to see local Los Angeles news anchors pimping themselves out for fake newscasts in movies.
12. Seriously, if you hit someone in the head with an aluminum baseball bat, you're probably going to kill them.
Hollywoodus celebritanius
Carlos Santana, in the waiting lounge at the Burbank airport (The Cheese Fry can't bring itself to call it the Bob Hope Airport), strolling over to the bathroom before taking a seat in the far corner facing the wall.
4.15.2007
Knee-jerk review: "Grindhouse"
1. Kurt Russell is the man. No doubt about it. The guy oozes effortless cool, even as a psycho bad guy. Especially as a psycho bad guy.
2. Yes yes, Quentin Tarantino has an ear for clever, poetic dialogue. We get it. Can we all just move on now? Especially Tarantino.
3. Was Rose McGowan always this gorgeous? Whoa.
4. The head-on car crash may be one of the more horrific sequences put to film. Very violent. And not in a check-it-out-cool way, but an eww-gross-did-we-need-to-see-that way.
5. Everyone's attacking Robert Rodriguez's film "Planet Terror" and praising Tarantino's film "Death Proof." Truth is, they're pretty equal in terms of what works and what doesn't. They both have lots of fun with the drive-in-style exploitation films they're mimicking, but they're both way too long and self-indulgent. You get the feeling that in making this film Rodriquez and Tarantino were mostly interested in amusing one another - whether or not audiences like it is sort of beside the point.
6. Bottom line: they're not nearly as clever and brilliant as they seem to think they are.
7. Before the film, one of the genuine coming attraction trailers was for Rob Zombie's needless remake of Halloween. It was a skeezy, loud, nasty little trailer... and almost completely indistisguishable from the "fake" trailers that ran in Grindhouse.
8. You know who else is really good in this? Josh Brolin. Seriously.
9. There's no need for this to run over three hours. No need at all.
10. Edgar Wright's fake trailer for a British horror film called Don't is genius.
11. The last 15 minutes or so of "Death Proof" are pretty exciting, especially that final freeze frame.
12. The first 15 minutes or so of "Death Proof" are incredibly boring.
2. Yes yes, Quentin Tarantino has an ear for clever, poetic dialogue. We get it. Can we all just move on now? Especially Tarantino.
3. Was Rose McGowan always this gorgeous? Whoa.
4. The head-on car crash may be one of the more horrific sequences put to film. Very violent. And not in a check-it-out-cool way, but an eww-gross-did-we-need-to-see-that way.
5. Everyone's attacking Robert Rodriguez's film "Planet Terror" and praising Tarantino's film "Death Proof." Truth is, they're pretty equal in terms of what works and what doesn't. They both have lots of fun with the drive-in-style exploitation films they're mimicking, but they're both way too long and self-indulgent. You get the feeling that in making this film Rodriquez and Tarantino were mostly interested in amusing one another - whether or not audiences like it is sort of beside the point.
6. Bottom line: they're not nearly as clever and brilliant as they seem to think they are.
7. Before the film, one of the genuine coming attraction trailers was for Rob Zombie's needless remake of Halloween. It was a skeezy, loud, nasty little trailer... and almost completely indistisguishable from the "fake" trailers that ran in Grindhouse.
8. You know who else is really good in this? Josh Brolin. Seriously.
9. There's no need for this to run over three hours. No need at all.
10. Edgar Wright's fake trailer for a British horror film called Don't is genius.
11. The last 15 minutes or so of "Death Proof" are pretty exciting, especially that final freeze frame.
12. The first 15 minutes or so of "Death Proof" are incredibly boring.
4.04.2007
"Don't you forget about me... Don't, don't, don't, don't..."
Here's a clever analysis of the John Hughes films, surely the most impactful 1980s pop culture force for Generation X that doesn't involve R2D2 or MTV.
3.23.2007
The Best and Worst Films of 2006
1. Children of Men - Criminally and inexplicably overlooked by the year-end award shows. A powerful, tour de force story of a sexually-sterile future world plagued by terrorism and totalitarianism (two sides of the same coin) that’s all too easily imaginable. Clive Owen’s strong as a reluctant hero dragged into an underground rebellion and asked to smuggle the world’s only pregnant woman. But it’s the filmmaking razzle-dazzle (courtesy director Alfonso Cuaron and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki) that grabs your attention, particularly two incredible long-take fight sequences that drops you in the middle of the action in ways guaranteed to make your palms sweat.
2. Pan’s Labyrinth – It’s easy to dismiss this as an esoteric fantasy, one of those weirdo foreign films that appeal only to film snobs. Don’t make that mistake. It’s easily the best-written film of 2006, writer-director Guillermo del Toro cleverly and lyrically interweaving a complex, dangerous fantasy quest (or is it real?) of a young girl with the bloody, oppressive reality of her life with her ruthless Franco fascist stepfather. The political metaphors and fairy tale symbolism are piled on, giving the film a vividly literary – practically mythic – sensibility.
3. Casino Royale – We’ve already rendered a verdict on this one. The best James Bond film in 40 years thanks to a grittier, more down-and-dirty approach to the character and the world of espionage. Here, a clenched fist gets you farther than some expensive gadget and you’re always one wrong step (or drugged drink) away from certain death. Daniel Craig is the perfect Bond, steely and dangerous in a way none of the others have been, including – dare we say it – Sean Connery. Rebooting the series and going back to 007’s origins, which includes a look at the doomed romance that paves the way for Bond’s hard heart, was a stroke of genius.
4. Borat – Don’t let anyone suggest this film is anything less than a masterpiece of satire. Yes, it’s packed full of fearlessly crude and outrageous moments (perhaps you’ve heard about the nude male wrestling) that leave you cringing even as you laugh out loud. But the real power of the film is that it's a hidden-camera social experiment – “Punk’d” with a PhD. Sasha Baron Cohen’s Borat character is a racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, homophobic, horny moron (surely a reflection of America’s raging xenophobia), but he’s so slyly sweet about it that his on-camera American citizen “co-stars” put up with for him far longer than they should. And it’s his search for the line of decency – that crass moment when Borat’s co-stars finally put their foot down (or should but don’t) – that makes the film so fascinating.
5. The Prestige – Writer-director Christopher Nolan has a thing for nonlinear narrative puzzles. He first strutted his backwards stuff with Memento and then with last year’s Batman Begins. The story here of two dueling illusionists (goody-goody Hugh Jackman and brooding Christian Bale) desperate to one-up the other by any means necessary is likewise told out of order. But because Nolan has immense respect for the audience, there’s no hand holding. You have to put the pieces together yourself, which is well worth the effort. As you slowly make the connections and realize the truths, everything builds to a final series of money shots that is as audacious and astonishing as anything you’ve seen. Seriously satisfying.
6. Little Miss Sunshine – The little, yellow, clutch-less bus that could. A perfect blend of gold-star acting, writing (Michael Arndt), and directing (Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris). What could have been a throwaway festival film about a crazy dysfunctional family’s crazy dysfunctional road trip winds up instead the Oscar-nominated, feel-good film of the year thanks to the sheer force of its effortless charm. It knows when to push the quirkiness and when to pull back, when to go for the sarcasm and when to go for emotion. Best of all is the hilarious and heartwarming ending – when we finally see little Olive on stage seeking the Little Miss Sunshine crown – which brings down the house.
7. United 93 – It’s probably not as harrowing or as tough as you may have heard, but it’s certainly a wrenching experience. Director Paul Greengrass creates a vivid “you are there” urgency and realism to this story of September 11, focusing on two stories: on the ground we have the bureaucratic confusion and decision-making vapor-lock in the military and FAA; in the air we see the goings-on in the cabin of United 93, the last plane to crash that morning following a hostage mutiny. The handheld camera, the no-name actors, the overlapping dialogue. It all feels very real, reopening old sorrow and outrage. Powerful and important, if not exactly “entertaining” in the usual sense of the word.
8. V for Vendetta – Another gripping, dark parable for these uncertain times. In a daring twist, however, this film – dynamic and eye-popping just as we’d expect from the director, Wachowski Brothers protégé James McTeigue (the Brothers wrote the script) – actually urges us to root for the terrorist to succeed. It’s a curious experience and an unsettling reminder that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. It’s a variation (as is Children of Men) on George Orwell’s dystopian 1984, a bleak world of martial law and paranoia in which blindly following sheep (here, civilian Natalie Portman and cop Stephen Rea) slowly wake up to the evil lies of the government. Good stuff.
9. The Departed – Did director Martin Scorsese deserve an Oscar for this? Probably not. It’s not as operatic and scary as GoodFellas. This is much more of a shoot-em-up cops-and-robbers thriller. But it’s a very good one thanks to the high-concept premise of two moles (one in the police, one in the mob) trying to ferret one another out. The cast is outstanding, particularly Mark Wahlberg and Leonardo DiCaprio. Wahlberg gets all the good lines (and the best exit) while DiCaprio finally shakes loose that whiny man-boy thing he’s been hamstrung by for so long. The shocking ending is worth discussion if only because it almost derails everything. It’s not what happens so much as how it happens – one can imagine Scorsese rubbing his hands together in geeky anticipation of sucker-punching the audience. Some people love the ending. Maybe you will. But it’s a big reason why this film fell so far in this list.
10. (tie) The Devil Wears Prada and Apocalypto – For every polished popcorn audience pleaser like The Devil Wears Prada, there’s an equally twisted and misunderstood lump of coal like Apocalypto. These two films are the yin and yang of 2006, the witty, sophisticated Ambitious-Girl-Seduced-by-Fame urban comedy and the violent, primeval extremely-period Hero-Must-Save-His-Family action film. Both are worth a look. In Prada, we get not only Meryl Streep vamping it up in a deliciously acid role as a fashion mag editor but also the emergence of a possible successor to the Julia Roberts/Reese Witherspoon throne in bright-eyed Anne Hathaway. This is a writer’s film (thank you, Aline Brosh McKenna and the many script doctors) – the juice comes from the dialogue. Apocalypto, however, is very much a director’s film. It’s visual storytelling at its very best. Say what you will about Mel Gibson’s loony-tunes personality and outlook on life, the guy can direct the hell out of a movie. Yes, this film continues his strange obsession with dead languages and humanity’s cruelty. But it’s a rousing, if needlessly gruesome, ride.
Honorable Mention: 16 Blocks, Cars, Dreamgirls, An Inconvenient Truth, Inside Man, Invincible, The Lake House, Little Children, The Queen, Rocky Balboa, Stranger than Fiction, Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, X-Men: The Last Stand.
Click – The problem with this movie was the misleading ad campaign, so maybe the real blame rests with the studio marketing executives. Audiences were promised a typically screwball Adam Sandler comedy about a guy who can control his life with a remote control. That’s high-concept comedy gold. The movie starts out that way, sure, but then it get deeply dark (and deeply weird) as the Sandler character fast-forwards through his entire life and winds up all alone... in a sci-fi future... in old age makeup. No way this gets made if it’s anyone but Sandler.
The Da Vinci Code – Now you know what they mean when they say “That novel’s unfilmable.” The Dan Brown book was poorly written (surely he’s the most successful hack of our generation), but at least the guy did his research. The bare-bones plot was padded out with plenty of fascinating history lessons and arcane trivia, more textbook than novel. But put that on a movie screen and you’re stuck with two hours of endless, blathering exposition. Never has Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, and Ian McKellen been so utterly boring. Unwatchable.
Flags of Our Fathers – It’s hard to believe Clint Eastwood directed this. It’s that muddled and unsatisfying. There’s the confusing, disjointed battle scenes that never come close to replicating the horror of a Saving Private Ryan (or even a Children of Men); the cardboard performances of C-level actors like Jessie Bradford and Ryan Phillipe; the unexpectedly leaden script that keeps hammering home its Big Ideas about Heroism; and last, but not least, the excruciatingly long running time.
Freedomland – This is one humorless, depressing movie. The whole thing was shot in grays and browns. Julianne Moore, all tears and whines, is supremely annoying. And the movie puffs itself up with delusions of grandeur, believing this ham-handed story of a race riot (caused by a Susan Smith-style fake kidnapping in a fictionalization that feels very “Law & Order”) has Important Things to Say. As if. Consider yourself warned.
Superman Returns – We’ve already covered this film’s sins in a previous post. No need to rehash it. More than likely a casualty of a studio system that locks in a release date and then forces the filmmakers to work backward from there, whether there’s enough time to make a quality product or not.
2. Pan’s Labyrinth – It’s easy to dismiss this as an esoteric fantasy, one of those weirdo foreign films that appeal only to film snobs. Don’t make that mistake. It’s easily the best-written film of 2006, writer-director Guillermo del Toro cleverly and lyrically interweaving a complex, dangerous fantasy quest (or is it real?) of a young girl with the bloody, oppressive reality of her life with her ruthless Franco fascist stepfather. The political metaphors and fairy tale symbolism are piled on, giving the film a vividly literary – practically mythic – sensibility.
3. Casino Royale – We’ve already rendered a verdict on this one. The best James Bond film in 40 years thanks to a grittier, more down-and-dirty approach to the character and the world of espionage. Here, a clenched fist gets you farther than some expensive gadget and you’re always one wrong step (or drugged drink) away from certain death. Daniel Craig is the perfect Bond, steely and dangerous in a way none of the others have been, including – dare we say it – Sean Connery. Rebooting the series and going back to 007’s origins, which includes a look at the doomed romance that paves the way for Bond’s hard heart, was a stroke of genius.
4. Borat – Don’t let anyone suggest this film is anything less than a masterpiece of satire. Yes, it’s packed full of fearlessly crude and outrageous moments (perhaps you’ve heard about the nude male wrestling) that leave you cringing even as you laugh out loud. But the real power of the film is that it's a hidden-camera social experiment – “Punk’d” with a PhD. Sasha Baron Cohen’s Borat character is a racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, homophobic, horny moron (surely a reflection of America’s raging xenophobia), but he’s so slyly sweet about it that his on-camera American citizen “co-stars” put up with for him far longer than they should. And it’s his search for the line of decency – that crass moment when Borat’s co-stars finally put their foot down (or should but don’t) – that makes the film so fascinating.
5. The Prestige – Writer-director Christopher Nolan has a thing for nonlinear narrative puzzles. He first strutted his backwards stuff with Memento and then with last year’s Batman Begins. The story here of two dueling illusionists (goody-goody Hugh Jackman and brooding Christian Bale) desperate to one-up the other by any means necessary is likewise told out of order. But because Nolan has immense respect for the audience, there’s no hand holding. You have to put the pieces together yourself, which is well worth the effort. As you slowly make the connections and realize the truths, everything builds to a final series of money shots that is as audacious and astonishing as anything you’ve seen. Seriously satisfying.
6. Little Miss Sunshine – The little, yellow, clutch-less bus that could. A perfect blend of gold-star acting, writing (Michael Arndt), and directing (Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris). What could have been a throwaway festival film about a crazy dysfunctional family’s crazy dysfunctional road trip winds up instead the Oscar-nominated, feel-good film of the year thanks to the sheer force of its effortless charm. It knows when to push the quirkiness and when to pull back, when to go for the sarcasm and when to go for emotion. Best of all is the hilarious and heartwarming ending – when we finally see little Olive on stage seeking the Little Miss Sunshine crown – which brings down the house.
7. United 93 – It’s probably not as harrowing or as tough as you may have heard, but it’s certainly a wrenching experience. Director Paul Greengrass creates a vivid “you are there” urgency and realism to this story of September 11, focusing on two stories: on the ground we have the bureaucratic confusion and decision-making vapor-lock in the military and FAA; in the air we see the goings-on in the cabin of United 93, the last plane to crash that morning following a hostage mutiny. The handheld camera, the no-name actors, the overlapping dialogue. It all feels very real, reopening old sorrow and outrage. Powerful and important, if not exactly “entertaining” in the usual sense of the word.
8. V for Vendetta – Another gripping, dark parable for these uncertain times. In a daring twist, however, this film – dynamic and eye-popping just as we’d expect from the director, Wachowski Brothers protégé James McTeigue (the Brothers wrote the script) – actually urges us to root for the terrorist to succeed. It’s a curious experience and an unsettling reminder that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. It’s a variation (as is Children of Men) on George Orwell’s dystopian 1984, a bleak world of martial law and paranoia in which blindly following sheep (here, civilian Natalie Portman and cop Stephen Rea) slowly wake up to the evil lies of the government. Good stuff.
9. The Departed – Did director Martin Scorsese deserve an Oscar for this? Probably not. It’s not as operatic and scary as GoodFellas. This is much more of a shoot-em-up cops-and-robbers thriller. But it’s a very good one thanks to the high-concept premise of two moles (one in the police, one in the mob) trying to ferret one another out. The cast is outstanding, particularly Mark Wahlberg and Leonardo DiCaprio. Wahlberg gets all the good lines (and the best exit) while DiCaprio finally shakes loose that whiny man-boy thing he’s been hamstrung by for so long. The shocking ending is worth discussion if only because it almost derails everything. It’s not what happens so much as how it happens – one can imagine Scorsese rubbing his hands together in geeky anticipation of sucker-punching the audience. Some people love the ending. Maybe you will. But it’s a big reason why this film fell so far in this list.
10. (tie) The Devil Wears Prada and Apocalypto – For every polished popcorn audience pleaser like The Devil Wears Prada, there’s an equally twisted and misunderstood lump of coal like Apocalypto. These two films are the yin and yang of 2006, the witty, sophisticated Ambitious-Girl-Seduced-by-Fame urban comedy and the violent, primeval extremely-period Hero-Must-Save-His-Family action film. Both are worth a look. In Prada, we get not only Meryl Streep vamping it up in a deliciously acid role as a fashion mag editor but also the emergence of a possible successor to the Julia Roberts/Reese Witherspoon throne in bright-eyed Anne Hathaway. This is a writer’s film (thank you, Aline Brosh McKenna and the many script doctors) – the juice comes from the dialogue. Apocalypto, however, is very much a director’s film. It’s visual storytelling at its very best. Say what you will about Mel Gibson’s loony-tunes personality and outlook on life, the guy can direct the hell out of a movie. Yes, this film continues his strange obsession with dead languages and humanity’s cruelty. But it’s a rousing, if needlessly gruesome, ride.
Honorable Mention: 16 Blocks, Cars, Dreamgirls, An Inconvenient Truth, Inside Man, Invincible, The Lake House, Little Children, The Queen, Rocky Balboa, Stranger than Fiction, Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, X-Men: The Last Stand.
Click – The problem with this movie was the misleading ad campaign, so maybe the real blame rests with the studio marketing executives. Audiences were promised a typically screwball Adam Sandler comedy about a guy who can control his life with a remote control. That’s high-concept comedy gold. The movie starts out that way, sure, but then it get deeply dark (and deeply weird) as the Sandler character fast-forwards through his entire life and winds up all alone... in a sci-fi future... in old age makeup. No way this gets made if it’s anyone but Sandler.
The Da Vinci Code – Now you know what they mean when they say “That novel’s unfilmable.” The Dan Brown book was poorly written (surely he’s the most successful hack of our generation), but at least the guy did his research. The bare-bones plot was padded out with plenty of fascinating history lessons and arcane trivia, more textbook than novel. But put that on a movie screen and you’re stuck with two hours of endless, blathering exposition. Never has Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, and Ian McKellen been so utterly boring. Unwatchable.
Flags of Our Fathers – It’s hard to believe Clint Eastwood directed this. It’s that muddled and unsatisfying. There’s the confusing, disjointed battle scenes that never come close to replicating the horror of a Saving Private Ryan (or even a Children of Men); the cardboard performances of C-level actors like Jessie Bradford and Ryan Phillipe; the unexpectedly leaden script that keeps hammering home its Big Ideas about Heroism; and last, but not least, the excruciatingly long running time.
Freedomland – This is one humorless, depressing movie. The whole thing was shot in grays and browns. Julianne Moore, all tears and whines, is supremely annoying. And the movie puffs itself up with delusions of grandeur, believing this ham-handed story of a race riot (caused by a Susan Smith-style fake kidnapping in a fictionalization that feels very “Law & Order”) has Important Things to Say. As if. Consider yourself warned.
Superman Returns – We’ve already covered this film’s sins in a previous post. No need to rehash it. More than likely a casualty of a studio system that locks in a release date and then forces the filmmakers to work backward from there, whether there’s enough time to make a quality product or not.
3.22.2007
Don't cry for me, Sanjaya.
If you're a regular viewer of the Idol (obsessives drop the American and add a "the"), you witnessed this week the curious scene of a hysterical, sobbing tweener girl acting like she was at The Ed Sullivan Show circa 1963. Even more curious is that she seemed all atwitter over the incredibly untalented contestant Sanjaya. Who was this girl? Surely she wasn't for real. Well, it wasn't exactly a plant, but it wasn't exactly spontaneous, either.
3.21.2007
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
Like poor Winona Ryder in Reality Bites, we find "irony" to be an elusive term. You probably think you know it when you see it. But how do you spot it?
Last month John Winokur wrote a column for the Los Angeles Times:
When it was revealed in 2003 that William J. Bennett, author of "The Book of Virtues," had a secret gambling habit, more than one commentator termed it a delicious irony, and it was indeed a pleasure to see a sanctimonious scold get his comeuppance. But it wasn't irony, just hypocrisy.
It was ironic when, on "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart commended Bennett for his indignation, and for "standing up to the William Bennetts of the world."
Here's another example of irony: the 1959 episode of "The Twilight Zone" titled "Time Enough at Last," in which Burgess Meredith plays Henry Bemis, a bookish bank teller with thick glasses and an insatiable appetite for reading. One day, knocked unconscious by a giant explosion, he awakens to find that he's the last man on Earth.
Wandering the desolate city, overwhelmed with loneliness, he is about to kill himself when he notices the ruins of … a library! Cut to: stacks of books piled high on the library's steps and Henry, giddy with joy. But as he settles down on the curb with the first book, his glasses fall off and shatter on the ground, trapping him forever in a blurry world.
Now that's irony.
Irony is one of the most misused words in the English language. Much of the confusion comes from the existence of several distinct forms of irony. Verbal irony is the act of saying one thing but meaning the opposite with the intent of being understood as meaning the opposite, as in, "Nice weather we're having" on a rainy day.
Cosmic irony involves quirks of fate, as when a UPS driver on his way to deliver parts to a hospital has a serious accident, is taken to the same hospital by ambulance, but the hospital can't perform necessary tests because one of its machines is down and the parts to fix it are in the driver's wrecked van.
Socratic irony is a strategy for refuting dogma. In the Platonic dialogues, Socrates assumes the role of the eiron, a sly dissembler who feigns naivete by asking seemingly foolish questions that gradually hang his opponents by their own admissions. A modern practitioner is Sacha Baron Cohen, whose characters Borat and Ali G expose pomposity by pretending to be stupid.
Irony is about the interplay of opposites, not the random proximity of events. It's ironic that Beethoven was deaf, but merely coincidental that Brad Pitt tore his Achilles tendon while playing Achilles in Troy. People miss the distinction and say "ironic" when they mean "coincidental," an abuse encouraged by Alanis Morissette's 1996 hit single, "Ironic," in which situations purporting to be ironic are merely annoying ("a traffic jam when you're already late, a no-smoking sign on your cigarette break").
It is ironic that "Ironic" is an un-ironic song about irony. Is that perfectly clear?
In case you're confused, here are some more examples of irony:
• Brewing heir Adolph Coors III was allergic to beer.
• County supervisors in Pima County, Ariz., held a closed meeting to discuss Arizona's open meeting law.
• U.S. Border Patrol uniforms are manufactured in Mexico.
• When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, so many visitors were taking souvenir pieces that a protective fence was installed, so that, yes, the Berlin Wall was guarded by a wall.
• Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's 2005 state of the nation address, in which he promised to remedy his country's chronic electricity shortages, was blacked out by a power failure.
• A 17-year-old Amish boy was electrocuted by a downed power line that became tangled in the wheels of his horse-drawn buggy.
• The "Marlboro Man" died of lung cancer.
• A 2001 Father's Day tribute on ESPN featured "How Sweet It Is (to be Loved by You)," sung by Marvin Gaye, who was shot and killed by his father in 1984.
• Entries for the Florida Press Club's 2005 Excellence in Journalism Award for hurricane coverage were lost in Hurricane Katrina.
Last month John Winokur wrote a column for the Los Angeles Times:
When it was revealed in 2003 that William J. Bennett, author of "The Book of Virtues," had a secret gambling habit, more than one commentator termed it a delicious irony, and it was indeed a pleasure to see a sanctimonious scold get his comeuppance. But it wasn't irony, just hypocrisy.
It was ironic when, on "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart commended Bennett for his indignation, and for "standing up to the William Bennetts of the world."
Here's another example of irony: the 1959 episode of "The Twilight Zone" titled "Time Enough at Last," in which Burgess Meredith plays Henry Bemis, a bookish bank teller with thick glasses and an insatiable appetite for reading. One day, knocked unconscious by a giant explosion, he awakens to find that he's the last man on Earth.
Wandering the desolate city, overwhelmed with loneliness, he is about to kill himself when he notices the ruins of … a library! Cut to: stacks of books piled high on the library's steps and Henry, giddy with joy. But as he settles down on the curb with the first book, his glasses fall off and shatter on the ground, trapping him forever in a blurry world.
Now that's irony.
Irony is one of the most misused words in the English language. Much of the confusion comes from the existence of several distinct forms of irony. Verbal irony is the act of saying one thing but meaning the opposite with the intent of being understood as meaning the opposite, as in, "Nice weather we're having" on a rainy day.
Cosmic irony involves quirks of fate, as when a UPS driver on his way to deliver parts to a hospital has a serious accident, is taken to the same hospital by ambulance, but the hospital can't perform necessary tests because one of its machines is down and the parts to fix it are in the driver's wrecked van.
Socratic irony is a strategy for refuting dogma. In the Platonic dialogues, Socrates assumes the role of the eiron, a sly dissembler who feigns naivete by asking seemingly foolish questions that gradually hang his opponents by their own admissions. A modern practitioner is Sacha Baron Cohen, whose characters Borat and Ali G expose pomposity by pretending to be stupid.
Irony is about the interplay of opposites, not the random proximity of events. It's ironic that Beethoven was deaf, but merely coincidental that Brad Pitt tore his Achilles tendon while playing Achilles in Troy. People miss the distinction and say "ironic" when they mean "coincidental," an abuse encouraged by Alanis Morissette's 1996 hit single, "Ironic," in which situations purporting to be ironic are merely annoying ("a traffic jam when you're already late, a no-smoking sign on your cigarette break").
It is ironic that "Ironic" is an un-ironic song about irony. Is that perfectly clear?
In case you're confused, here are some more examples of irony:
• Brewing heir Adolph Coors III was allergic to beer.
• County supervisors in Pima County, Ariz., held a closed meeting to discuss Arizona's open meeting law.
• U.S. Border Patrol uniforms are manufactured in Mexico.
• When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, so many visitors were taking souvenir pieces that a protective fence was installed, so that, yes, the Berlin Wall was guarded by a wall.
• Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's 2005 state of the nation address, in which he promised to remedy his country's chronic electricity shortages, was blacked out by a power failure.
• A 17-year-old Amish boy was electrocuted by a downed power line that became tangled in the wheels of his horse-drawn buggy.
• The "Marlboro Man" died of lung cancer.
• A 2001 Father's Day tribute on ESPN featured "How Sweet It Is (to be Loved by You)," sung by Marvin Gaye, who was shot and killed by his father in 1984.
• Entries for the Florida Press Club's 2005 Excellence in Journalism Award for hurricane coverage were lost in Hurricane Katrina.
Geico cavemen are people, too
Slate's Seth Stevenson takes a look at the genius of the Geico Insurance cavemen ads, which may be turned into a television sitcom this fall. The therapist-speakerphone spot is good, as is the balcony party spot ("Tina's here - we're getting back together"), but the best is surely the moving-airport-sidewalk spot.
2.07.2007
W. vs. S.M.U.
Slate's David Greenberg takes a closer look at the controversy surrounding SMU's bid to host George W's presidential library. Is the moral price too high?
UPS pitchman unmasked
You've probably seen the ads. A scruffily charming guy with the swept back mop of hair standing at a whiteboard making squeaky drawings to illustrate the power of UPS shipping. Who is that guy? Adweek has the answer. Sometimes it's the quiet, simple ads that work best.
UPDATE: More analysis has been provided by Slate's Seth Stevenson. Maybe Andy Azula should have a fan club.
UPDATE: More analysis has been provided by Slate's Seth Stevenson. Maybe Andy Azula should have a fan club.
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