Friday, January 29, 2010

Something Positive

I've bored myself with all the negative/political crap that I've been writing in this World Wide Web log. I'm going to think of something pleasant and apolitical to write about.

Hmm ... Oh hey, my cat did the cutest thing the other day. She ran over to me and said "What the hell is wrong with the Republicans in Congress? Are they capable of anything besides obstructionism for political gain?"

No, that's not true. My cat is actually a right-wing freak who thinks that the Senate's health care plan is fascism, despite the fact that it is very similar to the plan that Republicans put forth in the early '90s, and by the way, have the Republicans offered any constructive criticism during this whole thing? I'd like to ... OK, I'm going off track again.

Hm. Well, here's something that could be interesting, at least. I have a few conventions of movies and TV that always make me laugh, because when you think about them, they're preposterous. But for some reason we always accept them. Read, enjoy, and have your movie-watching experience permanently damaged by intrusive realizations of the niggling implausibility of what you're seeing.

1. A character awakens from a scary dream and sits straight up immediately. Try actually doing this sometime. No matter how scary your dream is, it is almost impossible to sit up ramrod straight immediately. There's actually a scientific reason for this. During certain parts of your sleep cycle, your body is in a sort of rigor mortis -- your muscles are locked and cannot move. Some people have a disorder in which they wake up while in this state, which is very scary, as you can imagine. Some believe that it's in this waking rigor mortis that people have delusions about being kidnapped by aliens -- the fear translates to terrible semi-conscious dreams that they are later convinced really happened. But anyway, that's besides the point.

Point is, most people experience this state of rigor mortis while they're dreaming. You can wake up with a start, but your eyes will open and that's about all you can do for at least a second or so.

2. A character coming home from the grocery store always has a baguette sticking out of his/her bag. I'm actually stealing this one from Roger Ebert, who's such a terrific movie reviewer that I'll read his reviews for fun, even if I have no intention of seeing the movies he describes. He documented this observation, which is an especially odd convention because I'm betting that a huge percentage of Americans have never bought a baguette in their entire lives. But we just implicitly accept that every movie character loves baguettes and buys them constantly.

I won't use up more spots for other Roger Ebert rules, but I have to include a few more in this one. He also has the Rule of the Apple Cart, in which every high-speed chase through a city involves someone knocking over a large cart of fruit, as if every city is lousy with them. My favorite, though, is the Meet Cute, in which every couple in a romantic comedy has to meet in some ostentatiously cute way, such as smashing into each other in the street or grabbing each other's genitals simultaneously during an orgy (awkward!) or something like that. It's never a matter of the guy just sort of sidling up to the crazy drunk girl during Dollar Shot Night at the Tipsy Pelican like what happens in real life.

You know, this is probably because in real life, meetings of potential mates are always painful and unseemly to watch. In fact, everything about the human mating process, in real life, is horrible to watch. If you're watching bad relationships, you feel icky and sad for both people. With good relationships, the people seem sickly sweet and annoying. Best to keep love off the screen entirely and just stick to watching stuff fart and explode.

3. Characters using computers in movies often end up with screens that blink "ACCESS DENIED!!!" in massive, boxy red letters. Movie characters seem to always be using computers that are actually running Atari games from the early '80s. In real life, you'd get a tiny little box coming on the screen saying "Password does not match username. Please try again." I guess that doesn't have quite the same cachet for the big screen.

4. Characters in different movies often use exactly the same scream. There's the Wilhelm scream, which is sorta famous and might actually be extinct now because it's too famous. Here's a video that compiles Wilhelm screams in various movies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbYsoEasio

But there are other ones I notice often. In TV ads I often hear a surprised sort of "WhaaAAAAaa!" that I of course can't describe further because I don't know what it's called or anything. So it's kind of pointless to bring it up. Oh well.

What else? I'm sure I'll think of more later. And when I do, I'll delete this part and put in another one. Kinda sad, really. These words never got the chance to fly on their own. Sigh.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Ooh, I'm So Scared, Osama!

OK, forget the stupid thing I just wrote. This is better. I have a new strategy for dealing with terrorism: sarcasm.

Osama bin Laden just released a tape saying that he directly ordered the attempted attack on Christmas Day, and that the attacks will continue as long as we keep supporting Israel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah. You know what, Osama, you're seeing more pathetic every day. You're seeming less like a criminal mastermind and more like an angry little man sitting in a basement writing insane letters to the editor.

First of all, the underwear bomber was a bit scary, but let's keep things in perspective. He was caught. He was just another Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. And even if he had blown up the plane, well, at the risk of sounding like a horrible human being, it's one plane. Out of the zillions that fly every day. Let's keep our heads about this and realize that the odds you'll be a victim of a terrorist attack are infinitesmal.

I point this out because terrorists depend on the outsized paranoia of their enemies to do their thing. In fact, that's their stock in trade. If terrorists could accomplish big attacks, they would, but they can't, because they're a small bunch of back-assward freaks living in a hellhole. So they do relatively small strikes that they know will cause large amounts of fear. So why play into their hands? Be fuckin' cool. In fact, be rude. Ha ha, asshole, you can't even get an underwear bomber to do any damage. Man, you suck!

We can look to the examples of other nations that regularly suffered terrorist attacks. The IRA would regularly explode cars on London streets. The English kinda sorta got used to it eventually. They would kinda be like, "Oh, that's terrible! Right nearby, huh? So ... that means the Piccadilly line will be closed, so I should probably take Victoria up to Bakerloo ..." Point is, they eventually stopped giving the IRA the fear that they needed to be effective.

I don't mean that we should let up on our anti-terrorist efforts. Not at all. Our government needs to keep working hard to prevent terrorist attacks. I'm just saying we don't have to show fear. Let's be frank -- fear coming from average Americans will accomplish nothing. Remember the color-coded chart and the importance of duct tape? Please. The mere fact of the 9/11 attacks made us all as vigilant as we need to be to tackle underwear bombers or report truly suspicious activity. That's all we need. Anything beyond that just causes paranoia and leads to the sacrifice of our fundamental values, such as the one about not torturing people, the one about giving people their day in court, etc.

The way I see it, the Bush administration wasn't thinking much about terrorism before 9/11. Hell, you can hadly blame them for that -- no one was. But when those planes hit, holy shit were they spooked. Way too spooked for their own good. In later years, they very well may have prevented a few minor attacks. But they also hurtled us into an unnecessary war in Iraq, which resulted in a much larger loss of life than any terrorism attack. They also sacrificed a lot of our values, destroyed our reputation abroad, spent insane amounts of money -- they were basically chickens with their heads cut off. They were a bunch of pussies freaking out. Which of course is exactly what the terrorists wanted. Greater strength of purpose and less panic would have resulted in calmly finishing the job in Afghanistan and making a few smart, measured precautions at home.

So anyway, now we should be concentrating on not allowing al-Qaeda to think that they have a say in anything. It's like how you deal with a spazzy kid prone to tantrums: He just wants attention, so don't give it to him.

A good recent example of overreaction was all the hulabaloo over housing Gitmo guys in American maximum-security prisons. Senators were freaking out, saying no way in my backyard! As if these al-Qaeda schmucks are some sort of Bond-esque supervillans who would drill their way out of a maximum-security prison and then go blow up the local Piggly-Wiggly. They're nothing more than a few maniacs who don't speak the language, have no local network, and won't understand what's going on around them.

And let's not forget that the regular folks in maximum security prisons are not exactly a bunch of cream puffs. I'm more scared of the white guy who eats people's faces than I am of some religious nut from Saudi Arabia who was a pawn in someone else's plan. Plus, I'm betting terrorism suspects will not be the most popular people in prison. The Aryan nation might enjoy making them their bitches. It actually might be cruel to put the terrorism suspects in with those guys.

Anyway, the point remains -- vigiliance is necessary, but not paranoia. They got a big fluke victory on 9/11. They're not actually that strong. We need to fight them, but also need to be cool when they try to shake us up. That will rob them of their only ammunition. Meanwhile, because they're such freaks, they'll continue shooting themselves in the foot by bombing Arab cities and killing anyone among them who's not a super right-wing nutjob. They aren't smart enough to gain any moderate allies and grow any bigger. They'll always just be a noisy little pack of lunatics. Best to just laugh at them, beat them down, and give them enough rope to hang themselves.

Things I Love: Black People

Black people are awesome, aren't they? Yep. Not that I really know any. Sadly, I don't have a single black friend. I live in the Twin Cities, which is not exactly an African-American mecca. Not that that's a valid excuse, since we do have some. I also don't have many friends, period. So there's that. There was a black dude at my old job who was pretty awesome, but he was too nice. Hard to joke around with someone who has trouble saying a mean word about anyone or anything.

But I see lots of black folks on TV, so that counts for something, right? Right? And music -- probably 80% of the music I listen to is made and performed by black folks. I just don't think white people are really that great at making music. Sorry, white folks -- just a personal preference.

And I've also seen a lot of comedians pontificating in a ribald and irrevent fashion on the hilarious differences one may find between white and black people. Man, white people are so lame! One I've never heard is one I've noticed the most, though. (And rest easy -- it's not funny.) Black folks have a tendency to walk right in the middle of traffic. I find this very odd. It'll be in the middle of the street, right in my path, so that I have to see them and slow down.

Maybe it's just a cultural difference -- for me, there's always an implicit assumption that any car will always keep going forward exactly at the same speed, and if you have any potential of meeting its trajectory, you will die. Black folks apparently think there are human beings behind the wheel who will see them, not want to hit them, and slow down to avoid doing so. Considering how most people behave behind the wheel, I think that's a potentially tragic leap of faith.

Has anyone else noticed this? Or am I a racist? Those are your two choices. Go.

Monday, January 18, 2010

A Few Myths About Religion in America

1, "This country was founded on Judeo-Christian values."

Well, not really. It was in the sense that the founders were white, and thus came from a Judeo-Christian background. By the same logic, Led Zeppelin was founded on Judeo-Christian values. So was the Geek Squad, the film "Happy Gilmore," and the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices.

Cuz see, this country was actually founded on Enlightenment values. Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion -- these are Enlightenment values, not Judeo-Christian ones. These are values created in opposition to the religious oligarchies that filled Europe at the time. At our country's founding, there were plenty of countries actually based on Judeo-Christian values, and none of them had any of the freedoms that form the basis of our country's greatness. These countries had state religions, and woe to those who didn't agree with them or with the monarchs.

The most illustrative example of this is to actually look at the Ten Commandments. I love when people want to post the Ten Commandments in public buildings, because they're a set of laws, and public buildings deal with sets of laws, right? And the Ten Commandments is older, so it must be the basis for what we have now. QED.

Try actually reading the Ten Commandments. Then compare them to the million gabillion laws, state, federal, etc., that govern our land. How many laws are shared by both? Two: Don't kill, don't steal. We're perfectly free to dishonor our mother and father, make graven images, covet our neighbor's ass -- eight of the Ten Commandments disallow things that we definitely CAN do, according to the highest law of our land, the Constitution. And the two that are shared by both sets of laws are also laws that exist in every country, and are certainly not unique to either the United States or Judeo-Christianity. Yeah, I think I could have figured out not to kill or steal without the Ten Commanments telling me. Doi.

I'm not a fan of American exceptionalism, in which we arrogantly think we're a beacon to the world and a moral authority to all and generally the bee's knees, but our Constitution really is an exceptional step forward in the evolution of society. And we can thank the Enlightenment, and our Enlightenment-minded Founding Fathers, for it. Not Christianity. Or even Judeo-Christianity.

2. "Our founders were deeply religious."

This is sort of a corrollary to the prevous one -- the Founding Fathers were actually so irreligious that they made the then-radical move of founding a country on Enlightenment values instead of religious ones. Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, etc. threw God's name in here and there in their speeches, but most were deists, who had a vision of God as a watchmaker: God wound up the world and then left it alone ever after. God isn't watching over us, isn't judging us and punishing us, isn't favoring us if we pray to him before a football game, and generally isn't that interested in our daily lives.

Mind you, they were quite interested in the moral lessons of the Bible. They went to church, learned from the Bible -- but they also learned from the Koran, from John Locke, etc. They were bookish, wealthy intellectuals. Basically, they were the Liberal Elite. John Kerry would have been much, much more at home with the Founding Fathers than would George W. Bush.

3) "Today's Christian conservatives hearken back to the Puritans."

Well, sort of. Yes, in the sense that both groups are really freakin' Christian. But there are some important differences.

Modern Christian conservative groups, such a Pentacostals or what have you, base everything on a person's personal relationship with Christ. God speaks to them personally, and their faith flowers from this. This idea would have been extreme blasphemy to the Puritans. In fact, it was: In 1638, a firebrand revolutionary Puritan named Anne Hutchinson was exiled from the community for saying, among other things, that God was speaking through her.

I learned about this in Sarah Vowell's "The Wordy Shipmates," which is a fun book even if you're not that into history. It talks about how the Puritans believed that God only spoke to them through the Bible, so they studied it like crazy. They actually remind me more of modern Orthodox Jews, endlessly picking apart and analyzing every word of their text. They were generally very literate and bookish, constantly writing and reading everything they could get their hands on.

So they were as nerdy as the Founding Fathers, but they sure as heck weren't deists. They believed everything they saw was a portent. Vowell talks about one Puritan who saw a mouse beat up on a snake. What would now be a funny YouTube video was then seen as a extremely meaningful signal of the Puritans defeating the devil, or something.

And, for the record, the Puritans did believe in at least some measure of separation between church and state. Preachers were prevented from running for government posts, that kind of thing. But in reality there was a lot of influence running back and forth and a lot of unabashedly religious laws on the books.

Another revolutionary figure among the Puritans, Roger Williams, had an opinion about the separation of church of state that more closely matches our modern one. Williams believed that there had to be a huge wall between church and state -- not because he wanted government freed from religion as much as he wanted religion unsullied by government. He had seen Catholicism in Europe warped by political concerns, misused as an instrument of power, and spawn horrible wars, like the 30 Years War that was raging at the time between Catholics and Protestants.

Williams was an interesting guy. He was an arrogant ultra-religious blabbermouth, but he was also remarkably tolerant in a lot of ways. He would harangue you for days on end to become Christian, but he didn't believe in ever punishing anyone for not being Christian. He was also exiled from the Puritain communities because of his views, and went on to live amicably with the American Indian tribe the Narrangasett and become the founder of both Providence and Rhode Island.

Anyway, modern Christian conservatives are much more beholden to a religious movement called the Great Awakening in the 1800s. That's when you got the tent revivals and fire and brimstone and such.

In conclusion (that's how I always ended every high school history paper), sure, The United States has a long history of strong religious feeling. But let's not forget that it also has a long history of irreligious feeling. And the government is and always has been a bastion of that feeling. It's worked pretty well so far, so let's keep it that way.

Monday, January 11, 2010

2001: A Space- and Time-Wasting Odyssey

You know what never gets old? The comedic timing of Bronson Pinchot. Oh, or the debate about when the millennium started. I accidentally brought it up in a comment last week, and then Amy responded to my comment. So I felt the need to trot out the issue in a full-post forum. I apologize. I really do. But nevertheless....

First off, I see this as a separate issue from the decade debate. 1999 was clearly the end of the Nineties, which made 2000 the first of the next decade (the Zippos, the Ainties, whatever - see previous blog post). A decade really is any grouping of ten years. I have no problem with that.

As for the millennium, let's start with something we can all agree to - a millennium, by definition, consists of exactly one thousand years, right? Excellent. (But see the postscript, at your peril.)

Therefore, to find out whether the new millennium began in 2000 or 2001, we need to find out when the previous one ended and count to a thousand from there. The answer? Well, either 999 or 1000, I guess. That wasn't so helpful. I guess we actually need to go back one more millennium.

A dusty village in the Middle East. In the Roman province of Judea. Inns, being in short supply to begin with, were completely unavailable to a young carpenter and his wife, who was great with child. Soon that child lay swaddled in a manger. This child was Jesus. The year? Good question. The Romans probably called it Cæsar Augustus XLIV or something like that, because I think they measured years from each emperor's reign. Using the current system, though, we now think it was somewhere between 3 B.C. (B.C.E.) and 6 A.D. (C.E.). But that's a digression for millennium-tracking purposes.

We measure years based on the date that Christ was once accepted to have been born, and every year since he was born is part of his reign - the Year of the Lord, Anno Domini. So the entire issue of the millennium comes down to this: was there a Year 0? If you say yes, and go ..., 2 B.C., 1 B.C., 0, 1 A.D., 2 A. D., ... and start counting with 0 as the first year of the first millenium, then the last year of the first millenium was 999, and the last year of the second millennium was 1999, thus making 2000 the first year of the third millennium. If you say no, and go ..., 2 B.C., 1 B.C., 1 A.D., 2 A.D., ..., then 1 was the first year of the first millennium, 1001 was the first year of the second millenium, and 2001 was the first year of the current one.

So which is it? I think it's clear that there was no Year 0 and that the new millennium started in 2001. Why? First, look at the way we divide the years. We have B.C. and A.D. Before Christ, and Anno Domini, or Year of the Lord. Under this framework, there cannot be any years between B.C. and A.D. Whichever year Christ was born, the previous year had to have been the last year before he was born. And that same year had to be the first year of his reign. There's no room for Year 0.

More commonsensically, ask yourself - where do you start counting things? With 0, or with 1? If I said, "Count the fingers on your right hand," would you say, "0, 1, 2, 3, 4" or "1, 2, 3, 4, 5"? Of course, we start counting with 1. So it makes sense that we would count years the same way.

I think the problem stems from the fact that we subconsciously analogize the B.C./A.D. framework to the number line we all learn in algebra. The number line goes ..., -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, ... . And B.C. years seem kind of like negative years, since they came before the A.D. years. So there must be a Year 0, since there's a zero in between negative and positive integers.

The analogy doesn't work, though, because, unlike the integers, the two year-numbering systems aren't part of one unbroken set - they are two separate sets. One set consists of all the years before Jesus was born, and the other consists of the year he was born and the following ones.

Imagine you're at P.E. in middle school (without the awkwardness and self-consciousness, if that's possible). The coach tells everyone to line up. Next, the coach splits the line in two, and tells one half to turn to the left, and the other to turn away from them, to the right. It still looks from afar like we have one continuous line of middle schoolers, but now we have two teams, Team Blue and Team Green. The coach tells Team Blue to count off, and they do - "1, 2, 3, 4, ...". Then, "Team Green, count off!" "Yes, coach! 1, 2, 3, 4, ...". As you can see, there is no Middle Schooler 0. There are two teams, back-to-back, each starting with 1. Similarly, there are two adjacent sets of years, each one beginning with 1.

Okay, that's it. I hope I've convinced everyone reading this blog that 2000 was the end of the millennium and that 2001 was the beginning of the new one. If not, I hope you enjoyed your trip down Memory Lane, getting pegged by the bullies in dodge ball.

P.S. I'm sure no one cares by now, but you can throw a whole new monkey wrench into the debate by asking about the effect of switching from the Julian to the Gregorian calendars. January 1, 1 A.D. on the Julian calendar is NOT exactly 2, 000 years before January 1, 2001 A.D. on the Gregorian calendar. There's currently a 13 day difference between the two calendars. Today would still be December 29, 2009 if we hadn't switched. Luckily for us all, I'm too exhausted to examine the ramifications of that now. Here's hoping you all have a safe and happy Julian New Year's Eve on Wednesday night.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Punch-Up of "The Phantom Menace"

OK, this will interest no one but me, but I wrote it in an email to my brother-in-law and liked it so much I had to save it. It's extremely topical -- a rewrite of a movie from 11 years ago that probably everyone has already rewritten. Enjoy, or don't, whatever.

OK, I was asked by George Lucas to punch up his new script for his upcoming film "The Phantom Menace." I unfortunately am not allowed to take the entire script, shred it, shit on it, and flush it down the toilet. So I have to work with what we have, and satisfy all of George's whims, while still making it tighter and more sensical. Here goes:

1. Change the Trade Federation to just some warlike planet who has a big, centuries-old beef with Naboo. Let's call them the Klingons, and make them way more bad-ass than the pathetic fishy Asian stereotypes that the whatever-the-fucks are. This would be a lot simpler and give a lot more comprehensible motivation. The Klingons just really hate Naboo, a la Palestinians and Israelis, and want to choke them out and then take over their planet. So they still have that stupid blockade, and have for a really long time now. The Galactic Senate is still powerless to do anything about it, but they still try by sending in some Jedis to talk. Darth Sidious is still pulling the strings, but he's doing so by promising the Klingons this massive droid army. By themselves, see, the Klingons could take over Naboo, but they could not then defend themselves against the inevitable Jedi intervention that would result. The droid army would enable them to go against the entire galaxy.

2. So the Jedi come in to talk and all that, and Darth Sidious still says to kill them. The Klingons are a bit freaked at this, but Sidious says that if they don't, no droid army. And no more support in the Senate (Sidious is the one causing the gridlock that allows the Klingons to keep doing their thing). So the Klingons (not the droid army -- they're promised but not delivered yet) try to kill the Jedi, but fail of course. Sidious knows that they will fail, but that's part of his secret plan. He wants the Jedi to go to the planet and smuggle Amidala out to the Senate.

3. Also, the droid army will need to be about a million times more bad-ass. That seems self-explanatory. But we haven't seen them yet. That's what we in the business call "suspense."

4. So now that they've tried to kill Jedis and failed, the Klingons know they've just thrown down the gauntlet. Time to act. They're excited. They send a Klingon army, no droids yet, down to the surface to conquer Naboo. It's not a massive contingent of Klingons, but it's enough to overwhelm the peace-loving pussy artistes that populate the idyllic Mediterreanean castles of the Naboo. The Jedi still sneak down with the Klingons. They don't come to warn the Naboo of the impending invasion, because as they show up, the Klingon army also shows up (which would of course make a lot more sense, as the reviewer pointed out (Ed. note: "The reviewer" is this guy, who incisively points out a lot of flaws in the movie)). The Jedi actually come to sneak in to the newly occupied city and sneak Amidala out, so they can all make a personal plea to the Senate to fucking do something. This would also cut out all the pointless jibber jabber among Amidala and her council of weiners. No debate needed -- come in, steal Amidala, leave.

5. George has told me that we still have to meet the Gungans somehow, because he is convinced that Jar Jar Binks will be the most beloved movie character of the generation. So fine. After we sneak Amidala out, we go through the planet's core, with all the fish eating each other and other shit that gives George a big boner, and we find the Gungans. If we need Jar Jar earlier, say he's the Gungan ambassador to Naboo, and so he obviously was with the Naboobies and will join them to meet the Gungans. The Jedi ask for the Gungans' help in getting off the planet, in getting through the blockade. It so happens that the Gungans have a peace treaty with the Klingons, because they don't want to be choked to death and don't have any beef with them. Maybe the Klingons force them to pay a heavy fee to not be blockaded also. But when the Gungans see the Jedi, they are convinced to switch sides and stow away Amidala, a few handmaidens, and the Jedi (for a large fee from Coruscant, and also the promise, they figure, of getting out from under Klingon fees). Maybe they also succumb to some Jedi mind trickery. Jar Jar Binks, the most beloved movie character of the generation, is the pilot of the ramshackle ship that the Gungans decide to pilot through the blockade.

6. With the dashing, courageous Jar Jar behind the helm, they are able to sneak the group through the blockade. There is no opportunity to have R2 do his heroism schtick on the wing of the ship. Sorry George, you'll have to bend on this one. Maybe you can add some tension by having them be boarded by the Klingons under suspicion of having stowaways. But the Jedis are able to save the day from their hiding places, by using the force to give the Klingons mystical hand jobs. They're all satisfied and say to hell with it and leave.

7. On the way to Coruscant, Obi-Wan receives a strong premonition, that there is someone on Tatooine with extreme Jedi powers. Being a young and brash warrior instead of a dull, ineffectual puss like he is in the current script, Obi-Wan is convinced that we need to follow up on it, to bring this person to Coruscant with them. Much argument ensues, between him and the old, wise, and more tempered Fucknut McGee (that's Qui-Gonn's new name, forgot to mention that, sorry), and between Obi-Wan and Amidala. They're all like, hey, planet occupied here! But Jedis are known for their strong premonitions, and Fucknut agrees that he has felt it too. Amidala says fine, let's get this person. But be quick about it.

8. So they do. They go to the place where they feel an unusual amount of Force activity, more than they ever have before. It's Watto's place. He is less of an offensive Jewish stereotype. Both Fucknut and Obi-Wan are there, because it doesn't make any sense to leave Obi-Wan at the ship (and because Obi-Wan is the true protagonist, and really should be in about every scene). Amidala insists on sending one of her handmaidens to make sure this happens quickly, and ... I don't know why Jar-Jar has to go. Someone else figure that out.

9. So they want to buy the slave that's giving them Force erections. They try to pretend they just need any old slave, but Watto figures out that they're Jedi, who are morally against slaves, and realizes that this kid must be really valuable if the Jedi are bothering with him. So he says oh, his price just went up to a jillion gabillion dollars. They offer all the cash they have on them, but Watto says no, gotta get more. They say they can come back with millions after they get back to Coruscant, but Watto says get the fuck out of my store.

10. So how can they get more cash? Hey look, there's a talent show going on tonight! With a 10,000-credit grand prize! If we win that, we'd have the money we need to get to Hollywood! No, they actually figure that Anakin can win the stupid pod race thing that makes George cum in his pants. The rule on the planet is that slaves get their winnings from such races, as long as they pay the large entry fee (which the Jedis are able to supply). And if Anakin wins, that will give them enough cash. If Anakin loses, Watto gets all ther money, their ship, everything. Simple.

11. There are no Mitochlorians. That is a moronic idea. The Force is supposed to be a spiritual thing, and reducing it to magical paramecia ruins it. And is unnecessary. The Jedi feel it real hard, and that's plenty. That's what Jedis do.

12. And there's no fucking virgin birth. There is no mention of the father -- that's all a mystery.

13. And make Anakin older. Maybe 12 or older. There's no earthly reason to make him so young and annoying.

14. And you can still say that Anakin's making C-3PO, if you really need to. But not to help his mother, who would have no need for a protocol droid, as the reviewer points out. Anakin's just making him for shits and giggles. Maybe it's the easiest kind of droid to make. It's not terribly important I suppose.

15. I know -- if you need R2 heroism, you can have him fixing some crucial part of the pod just in time for the race. That makes more sense than dragging him along to a planet to help pick up a kid. Maybe he just showed up as a pit droid who is owned by the pod race track, and figured out how to fix Anakin's pod, and then later they bought him with the winnings.

16. So why can't the mother go with them off Tatooine? Because she would be boring, basically. Maybe she's caring for an elder relative. Maybe Watto refuses to let her go, only the boy. Maybe Watto's boning her. Whatever. Regardless, when Jedis come to your house and say your kid is the most awesomest Jedi prodigy ever, you let him go. And there's no need to have their heads explode if the leave Watto's house. The Jedis wouldn't steal them anyway, because they have morals.

17. This is taking longer than I thought. I'm going to see it through though. So you still have the scene where Amidala pleads in the Senate for a solution, and Chancellor Valorum is still weak and influenced by special interests (which are secretly controlled by Palpatine, but no reason to belabor that), and Amidala registers a vote of no confidence, paving the way for Palpatine. The only good simplication I can think of here would be to say that Palpatine is the vice-Chancellor, so he takes over automatically after the vote. You could then cut out the talky scene with Palpatine and Amidala. They just go to the Senate floor, have this conversation, and that's it. Done.

18. The Jedi Council meets the boy, and says, yeah, he gots Force up the ass, no doubt. But too much. So much it would tip the scales. Fucknut is kinda like, yeah, I was thinking the same thing, but Obi-Wan, because he is headstrong and has a personality, insists. The council does not budge. Bring him back to Tatooine, they say. Bury him in a deep hole. And listen to your elders more, asshole.

19. Polyptaint, as the new Chancellor, immediately says, let's bring a solid group of Jedis to Naboo. Woo, says everyone. The Jedis bum-rush Naboo and take an immediate victory, liberating the Naboo from the Klingons.

20. The Klingons go to Sidious, furious. You promised us a victory! Sidious then brings in the promised droid army. Aw shit, it's on.

21. The Jedi see them coming and freak. They go again to the Gungans, and Jar Jar makes a convincing and dramatic speech about how wonderful his new friends are, and we have to be on the side of good and right, and a house divided against itself cannot stand, and I have seen the promised land but will not get there with you, and so forth. It's all very touching, and Jar Jar's incredible dignity and sense of noble purpose carries it through. The Gungans are convinced.

22. During all this, why is Anakin still there? Well, Amidala has had enough of the delays, and convinces them to drop him off later, after Naboo is re-liberated. This gives Amidala a little backbone, which will be nice.

23. The climax is still overcomplicated. But at least it makes a wee bit more sense. Instead of hiding in a cockpit (!), Anakin gets all full of himself and decides he has to fight, so he highjacks a ship of someone who was just shot down and destroys a bunch of the donut ships, including the one powering the droid army. He does it by skill, not falling ass-backwards into victory. Everyone is quite impressed. The not-huge contingent of Jedi and the Naboo and the Gungans, all together in a show of unity, were trying hard but just not able to cut through the millions of droids, until Anakin saves the day.

24. You still have Dath Maul cornering the two Jedi and going through an overly choreographed battle. There needs to be more motivation there though. Maybe Maul can make some statement about the Sith getting revenge and rising again, and that he will exterminate every Jedi until it happens? I don't know, I guess I didn't think this part needed as much fixing as the rest. I thought Darth Maul was the only good part of the whole movie -- no talking, just ass-kicking.

25. So after the victory, at the end, Obi-Wan goes back to Yoda. Yoda reconsiders. He says that the future is cloudy, and Anakin has undeniable skillz, as evidenced by his victory on Naboo -- OK, fine, we'll let him be a Jedi. But he will be your responsibility, Obi-Wan.

26. Ooh, new idea. Fucknut should be the young and brash one. Obi-Wan can be older and wiser, but still relenting and going along with Fucknut's plan to bring Anakin to Jedi school and all that. Switch the roles there. And Fucknut still gets killed by Darth Maul. And Obi-Wan can still pledge to take over Anakin's training if Fucknut dies. And he can go to Yoda at the end, newly convinced and changed (characters changing in a movie! Holy shit!). He has new faith in the Force after seeing what Anakin can do. Maybe before he was too analytical, not spirtual enough, and the young and brash Fucknut convinced him to go with the feeling more. Especially when he died. So then Anakin takes Fucknut's place as Obi-Wan's padowan. Of course later we learn that such faith is stupid, and analytical caution is better, but that's for a later movie.

What do you think? Still a turd, but at least a more polished one.

Friday, January 1, 2010

You Will NOT Call This Past Decade "The Naughties"

I have a brand-new hatred. This one's so intense that all the others can go to hell. I'd rather spend the rest of my life in a locked room with ultra-right-wing lunatics who chew very loudly while touching their eyeballs and yammering inanely through a long series of Joss Whedon movies than hear another person call this past decade "the naughties."

It's annoying because it's a lame pun ("naught," "nineties," "naughties," wa ha ha), complete with a pathetically small tinge of transgressiveness, of the variety that I could picture on a $100 pink t-shirt worn by Paris Hilton. And it's not even apropos -- this past decade was many things, but it was not "naughty." It was a decade of war, terrorism, and economic disaster. Calling it "naughty" is like calling Hitler "a big poopyhead!"

It was a pretty good decade for me personally, but for the world, I'm betting it was the worst since the '30s. The '40s were a bit problematic too, granted, what with the aforementioned poopyhead and his naughty goings-on. The Aughts (as I prefer to call them) did not have had a single massive problem like the Depression in the '30s or the World War in the '40s. Instead it was a poisonous bouillabaisse of all the worst aspects of the last few decades: the unecessary, intractable foreign war of the '60s, the major recession of the '70s, the greed and widening disparity between rich and poor of the '80s, the existence of Kevin Smith of the '90s (I hate Kevin Smith too).

And more importantly, I have no clear idea what the pop-culture trends were this past decade. What would a Halloween costume of an Aughts dude look like? The '60s had hippies, the '70s had disco gear, the '80s had New Wave, the '90s had grunge -- what the hell did people wear in the Aughts? It's as if they just wore what looked best on them individually rather than slavishly following moronic fads that made them look ridiculous! What the fuck kind of decade is that?

Mostly, I'm worrying about what third-rate comedians will make unfunny comments about in the inevitable 30-hour VH-1 series "I Love the Aughts." I am actually kind of a sucker for those sort of things -- not because I enjoy the dime-store snarkiness, but because I genuinely love getting to know a period of time by going through the whole constellation of its cultural touchstones. For some reason, it warms my heart to watch a countdown of the most popular songs of the '90s, even though I distinctly remember hating most of the songs with a passion.

I'm sure I could easily find out what said unfunny third-rate comedians have already said about this decade -- as I remember, they made a "I Love this Current Decade" series long before the decade was over, and I'm sure there is another one going on now. But I'd rather conjecture about what I think should be in such a series:

1. Loads of technology crap: Social media web sites, Wii, iPods, iPhones, iMacs, iDon'tknowwhatelse
2. Reality shows

Uhhh ... well, there has to be other stuff. Maybe Beyonce? She had a good decade. Kanye West? What were the biggest movies? Batman Whatever with Heath Ledger as Crazy Joker? I know I'm favoring the stuff at the end of the decade, which people always do when they're talking about the previous decade. Let's go see what the top-grossing movies were in the Aughts:

The Dark Knight (2008)
$533,316,061
Shrek 2 (2004)
$436,471,036
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
$423,032,628
Spider-Man (2002)
$403,706,375
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
$402,076,689
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
$380,262,555
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
$377,019,252
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
$373,377,893
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
$370,270,943
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
$340,478,898
Finding Nemo (2003)
$339,714,367
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
$336,530,303
Shrek the Third (2007)
$320,706,665
Transformers (2007)
$318,759,914
Iron Man (2008)
$318,298,180
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
$317,557,891
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
$317,011,114
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
$313,837,577
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
$310,675,583
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
$309,404,152
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
$305,388,685
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
$301,956,980
Up (2009)
$292,979,556
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
$292,000,866
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
$291,709,845
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
$289,994,397
New Moon (2009)
$281,928,000
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
$281,492,479
Meet the Fockers (2004)
$279,167,575
The Hangover (2009)
$277,313,371
Shrek (2001)
$267,652,016
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
$261,970,615
The Incredibles (2004)
$261,437,578
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
$260,031,035
Star Trek (2009)
$257,704,099
I Am Legend (2007)
$256,386,216
Monsters, Inc. (2001)
$255,870,172

Well, this is a rather alarming list. This, by the way, is a list of the 50 top-grossing movies of all time, with all the non-Aughties movies removed. This means that the only thing worse than "Transformers: Revenge of the fallen" being the fifth-biggest movie of the decade is the fact that it is the ninth-best grossing film OF ALL TIME. I know, this list of highest grossers was always kinda bullshit, since there's a huge bias towards recent movies because of inflation. But I remember when I was kinda into this list, when "E.T." had a long run at the top, surpassed only by "Titanic." Now "E.T." has been surpassed by "Shrek 2." Sigh.

But anwyay, all that aside, this is a good way to catch onto some of the Aughties touchstones. You had the "Lord of the Rings" series, which was quite good. You had all those Pixar movies, which are uniformly excellent. Harry Potter and Shrek are also, I'm told, tolerable, so those go in the bin of Aughts trends. Spider-Man, the "Star Wars" prequels, "Pirates of the Carribean," and "The Passion of the Christ" are definite keepers, for better or worse.

So now our list, in no particular order, is:

1. Social media web sites
2. Wii
3. Apple: iPods, iPhones, iMacs, iDon'tknowwhatelse
4. Reality shows (this could be many entries, maybe one for "Survivor," one for "American Idol," maybe "So You Think You Can Dance With the Stars" or whatever that show is)
5. "Lord of the Rings" movies
6. Pixar movies
7. Harry Potter
8. Shrek
9. Spider-Man
10. "Star Wars" prequels
11. "Passion of the Christ"
12. "Pirates of the Carribean"
13. "The Dark Knight"

Of course, there are also movies that didn't do blockbuster business, like "Brokeback Mountain." That should be in there. And there's all the other media. But I'm tired now. More later!