A fun kind of game I found on Alison's grandma's blog, Z's World (did you know that grandmas could have blogs?!).
Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog.
*Post a link along with your post back to this blog.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.
Edna Selan Epstein, The Attorney-Client Privilege and Work-Product Doctrine (5th ed. 2007)
In short, the attorney-client privilege is designed to protect a client's expectation of confidentiality regarding communications with his attorney. There has been no showing by Metro that, at the time the documents in question were generated, it had any intent or expectation that they would be concealed from its insurance carriers.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Ever Read the Bible?
I know I haven't. But I went to church every Sunday as a kid and went to lots of Sunday Schools and Bible Camps and Jesus Discos and all the rest of it. So I feel like I know the Bible pretty well. I even read a comic-book version of the whole Old Testament (Spoiler alert: Jesus dies in the end. And the Jews did it, in the billiard room, with the cross.)
But despite that exhaustive research, there are still some fun bits I missed somehow. For instance, there's a whole section of Exodus that lays out about a hundred amendments to the Ten Commandments.
Some are great. Exodus 22:25 states "If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest." So basically, all bankers are breaking God's law. Awesome!
Some are not so great. Exodus 20:21-22 states "If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, because the slave is his property." Hmmm. So those people who think homosexuality is a sin because of a few Bible passages ... they obviously must also be in favor of beating slaves within an inch of their lives, no? Or perhaps this Exodus passage is a metaphor. A metaphor for ... ummm .... c'mon, liberal preachers, do something with this one. Stretch this somehow into a lesson about modern life.
No, but really, a lot of this stuff was really revolutionary for its time. You gotta remember what ancient life was like. It was brutality spiced with sadism, with a little mauling on the side. Rome was the most advanced civilization of the ancient world, and it was a place in which entertainment meant watching lions eat people. The Roman gods and other related polytheistic systems didn't really impart morality at all -- they were just more powerful versions of humans whose whims you supposedly had to appease if you wanted to get anywhere.
A lot of the Exodus rules represent a definite step forward from all that. Exodus 21:12: "Anyone who strikes a man and kills him will surely be put to death." So despite the harsh punishment, it implies some value to human life. Or here's a better one -- Exodus 22:21: "Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt." (But Mexicans, of course, they're a different story. You can oppress them all you like. After all, they're not from Egypt!)
So yeah, anyway, I don't have any great overarching point here -- I'm just saying that the Bible is fun. It's totally dope, kids! Word!
But despite that exhaustive research, there are still some fun bits I missed somehow. For instance, there's a whole section of Exodus that lays out about a hundred amendments to the Ten Commandments.
Some are great. Exodus 22:25 states "If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest." So basically, all bankers are breaking God's law. Awesome!
Some are not so great. Exodus 20:21-22 states "If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, because the slave is his property." Hmmm. So those people who think homosexuality is a sin because of a few Bible passages ... they obviously must also be in favor of beating slaves within an inch of their lives, no? Or perhaps this Exodus passage is a metaphor. A metaphor for ... ummm .... c'mon, liberal preachers, do something with this one. Stretch this somehow into a lesson about modern life.
No, but really, a lot of this stuff was really revolutionary for its time. You gotta remember what ancient life was like. It was brutality spiced with sadism, with a little mauling on the side. Rome was the most advanced civilization of the ancient world, and it was a place in which entertainment meant watching lions eat people. The Roman gods and other related polytheistic systems didn't really impart morality at all -- they were just more powerful versions of humans whose whims you supposedly had to appease if you wanted to get anywhere.
A lot of the Exodus rules represent a definite step forward from all that. Exodus 21:12: "Anyone who strikes a man and kills him will surely be put to death." So despite the harsh punishment, it implies some value to human life. Or here's a better one -- Exodus 22:21: "Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt." (But Mexicans, of course, they're a different story. You can oppress them all you like. After all, they're not from Egypt!)
So yeah, anyway, I don't have any great overarching point here -- I'm just saying that the Bible is fun. It's totally dope, kids! Word!
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Solutions to Baseball's Problems
Baseball doesn't really have any problems, really. I mean not like Zimbabwe or Bernie Madoff or beeper salesmen have troubles. Baseball is wildly successful and is rolling in so much money that it real worst problem is paper cuts. And I should state that baseball is one of my favorite things in the world. But like everything, it has a few problems that could be fixed to make it a bit better. For example:
Problem: There's a crazy disparity in income between large-market teams and small-market teams. This is been the source of much hand-wringing in baseball for a long time now. A lot of half-measures have been taken, like revenue sharing, in which the small-market teams get an infusion of cash from the rich ones.
But this stinks because it enables the Florida Marlins to basically tank each year and still make a profit. All they have to do is keep their payroll artifically low, and revenue sharing will ensure that they make a profit even if they don't sell a single ticket all year. How come tea partiers haven't come out against revenue sharing? If that ain't communist, I don't know what is.
I should note that the rest of the small-market teams make a real effort to win. And because some of them have had some success lately, the clamor for reform has actually died down a bit. But the fact of the matter is still that if the Milwaukee Brewers develop a player like Prince Fielder, they can hope to keep him for, at best, the first half of his career, after which he's going to sign with the Yankees for ten gabillion dollars. There's not too much the Brewers can do about that -- The Yankees serve a massive group of people, both to watch the games and attend them, and the Brewers just don't.
Solution: The away team gets half the gate at each game. So when the Royals visit the Yankees, they get half of the proceeds for ticket sales for the games they play. Why shouldn't they? They're on the bill too. They make half the effort on the field. The home team still keeps all the money from concessions, merchandise, TV rights, etc. Maybe the home team could keep 55% to cover the salaries of the grounds crew and announcer and hilarious fellow in the chicken suit. Whatever - regardless, the Royals organization should be paid for their contribution to those individual games.
The Yankees would hate this, of course. The Yankees make lot more in gate receipts than the Royals do. But really, the big difference-maker between the Yankees and Royals is the size of their TV contracts, and that won't change. Under this plan, the Yankees would still make more money than everyone else. But it won't be quite as lopsided. And it's an elegant, simple plan, without any of the clumsy, artificiality of revenue sharing. It sure won't allow the Marlins to tank.
So what if the Yankees refuse to give up half their gate? Then the Royals say "OK, fine, then we're not coming. Good luck filling your schedule." Simple. That would never happen, of course, because the owners are all a bunch of rich old white men who spend their time scratching each other's backs with backscratchers made of million-dollar bills. Their enemy is the players, so if the plan doesn't involve screwing the players somehow, they won't do a thing.
Problem: Games are too slow. This is the first thing that every baseball hater says about our beloved game, so just the mention of it makes us baseball lovers want to shoot them very, very slowly. But there are times when I have to agree. When you're watching Nomar Garciaparra foul off the tenth pitch of the at-bat, and then leave the batter's box, remove all his clothes, put them all back on, tap his head ten times, wash his hands fifteen times, do twenty Hail Marys, and then finally step back in the box, you can't help but think "Hurry the hell up!!!!"
Solution: I've already let the cat out of the bag on this one. The solution is to not automatically let the batter leave the batter's box between pitches. Once he enters the batter's box, he has to stay there until he gets a hit or walks hit by a pitch or falls down or gets eaten by a monster. If he wants to leave the box in mid-at-bat, he has to ask the umpire. The umpire doesn't have to say yes. This would be an easy fix -- this is already what batters have to do after the pitcher gets set. Just extend it to the whole at-bat.
Of course, you still have slow pitchers. I think you might have to just have a time limit between pitches. If you don't deliver the ball in time, you've just thrown a ball. That's not the most elegant solution, but hey, I can't think of everything.
Problem: Umpires are human beings. I'm not one to blame umpires for missed calls. It's extremely hard to make split-second calls over split-second plays 100% correctly all the time. Poor umpires only get noticed the 1% of the time they miss a call.
So the point is, I feel bad for umpires. So bad that I want to fire them all and replace them with computerized systems. They already have such a computerized system for judging whether pitches are balls are strikes. Why not just let that system take over? A little noise can come up immediately if it's a ball, and a different one if it's a strike. No missed calls, no arguing.
As for tags, catches, home run calls, etc., there have to be similar systems that could judge those and spit out a response immediately. That's the key, of course -- it has to make the call immediately. You can't have some guy in a booth looking at instant replays.
This one especially will probably not catch on with baseball fans. Their likely response will be "But umpires are a part of the game!" True, I would argue, but not a good part. I want competition to be as fair as humanly, or if need be, robotically, possible. I don't enjoy having human error play such a large role. I'll miss the umpires at first, but I'll get used to the new system and eventually enjoy it more because I wouldn't have to wonder what would have happened if calls went the other way. And that's what it's all about -- what's most fun to watch. And no, I wouldn't want the players all replaced by robots. That would not be fun to watch. (Or would it ...)
In general, true baseball fanatics tend to think of the sport as a perfectly wrought machine, one for which a single alteration would ruin everything. It ain't. It's entertainment, and can always be made to be more entertaining.
Other sports do it. There was a time when basketball had no shot clock. At the end of games, the team that was ahead would just sit there dribbling, trying to run out the clock. They instituted the shot clock to prevent that, and now ... well, now basketball games end with a bunch of tedious fouls and time outs ... but anwyay, that's still better than watching some schmuck dribble for twenty minutes.
So yeah, those are my proposals. They will never, ever, ever be enacted. Oh well.
Problem: There's a crazy disparity in income between large-market teams and small-market teams. This is been the source of much hand-wringing in baseball for a long time now. A lot of half-measures have been taken, like revenue sharing, in which the small-market teams get an infusion of cash from the rich ones.
But this stinks because it enables the Florida Marlins to basically tank each year and still make a profit. All they have to do is keep their payroll artifically low, and revenue sharing will ensure that they make a profit even if they don't sell a single ticket all year. How come tea partiers haven't come out against revenue sharing? If that ain't communist, I don't know what is.
I should note that the rest of the small-market teams make a real effort to win. And because some of them have had some success lately, the clamor for reform has actually died down a bit. But the fact of the matter is still that if the Milwaukee Brewers develop a player like Prince Fielder, they can hope to keep him for, at best, the first half of his career, after which he's going to sign with the Yankees for ten gabillion dollars. There's not too much the Brewers can do about that -- The Yankees serve a massive group of people, both to watch the games and attend them, and the Brewers just don't.
Solution: The away team gets half the gate at each game. So when the Royals visit the Yankees, they get half of the proceeds for ticket sales for the games they play. Why shouldn't they? They're on the bill too. They make half the effort on the field. The home team still keeps all the money from concessions, merchandise, TV rights, etc. Maybe the home team could keep 55% to cover the salaries of the grounds crew and announcer and hilarious fellow in the chicken suit. Whatever - regardless, the Royals organization should be paid for their contribution to those individual games.
The Yankees would hate this, of course. The Yankees make lot more in gate receipts than the Royals do. But really, the big difference-maker between the Yankees and Royals is the size of their TV contracts, and that won't change. Under this plan, the Yankees would still make more money than everyone else. But it won't be quite as lopsided. And it's an elegant, simple plan, without any of the clumsy, artificiality of revenue sharing. It sure won't allow the Marlins to tank.
So what if the Yankees refuse to give up half their gate? Then the Royals say "OK, fine, then we're not coming. Good luck filling your schedule." Simple. That would never happen, of course, because the owners are all a bunch of rich old white men who spend their time scratching each other's backs with backscratchers made of million-dollar bills. Their enemy is the players, so if the plan doesn't involve screwing the players somehow, they won't do a thing.
Problem: Games are too slow. This is the first thing that every baseball hater says about our beloved game, so just the mention of it makes us baseball lovers want to shoot them very, very slowly. But there are times when I have to agree. When you're watching Nomar Garciaparra foul off the tenth pitch of the at-bat, and then leave the batter's box, remove all his clothes, put them all back on, tap his head ten times, wash his hands fifteen times, do twenty Hail Marys, and then finally step back in the box, you can't help but think "Hurry the hell up!!!!"
Solution: I've already let the cat out of the bag on this one. The solution is to not automatically let the batter leave the batter's box between pitches. Once he enters the batter's box, he has to stay there until he gets a hit or walks hit by a pitch or falls down or gets eaten by a monster. If he wants to leave the box in mid-at-bat, he has to ask the umpire. The umpire doesn't have to say yes. This would be an easy fix -- this is already what batters have to do after the pitcher gets set. Just extend it to the whole at-bat.
Of course, you still have slow pitchers. I think you might have to just have a time limit between pitches. If you don't deliver the ball in time, you've just thrown a ball. That's not the most elegant solution, but hey, I can't think of everything.
Problem: Umpires are human beings. I'm not one to blame umpires for missed calls. It's extremely hard to make split-second calls over split-second plays 100% correctly all the time. Poor umpires only get noticed the 1% of the time they miss a call.
So the point is, I feel bad for umpires. So bad that I want to fire them all and replace them with computerized systems. They already have such a computerized system for judging whether pitches are balls are strikes. Why not just let that system take over? A little noise can come up immediately if it's a ball, and a different one if it's a strike. No missed calls, no arguing.
As for tags, catches, home run calls, etc., there have to be similar systems that could judge those and spit out a response immediately. That's the key, of course -- it has to make the call immediately. You can't have some guy in a booth looking at instant replays.
This one especially will probably not catch on with baseball fans. Their likely response will be "But umpires are a part of the game!" True, I would argue, but not a good part. I want competition to be as fair as humanly, or if need be, robotically, possible. I don't enjoy having human error play such a large role. I'll miss the umpires at first, but I'll get used to the new system and eventually enjoy it more because I wouldn't have to wonder what would have happened if calls went the other way. And that's what it's all about -- what's most fun to watch. And no, I wouldn't want the players all replaced by robots. That would not be fun to watch. (Or would it ...)
In general, true baseball fanatics tend to think of the sport as a perfectly wrought machine, one for which a single alteration would ruin everything. It ain't. It's entertainment, and can always be made to be more entertaining.
Other sports do it. There was a time when basketball had no shot clock. At the end of games, the team that was ahead would just sit there dribbling, trying to run out the clock. They instituted the shot clock to prevent that, and now ... well, now basketball games end with a bunch of tedious fouls and time outs ... but anwyay, that's still better than watching some schmuck dribble for twenty minutes.
So yeah, those are my proposals. They will never, ever, ever be enacted. Oh well.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Review of a Show You've Never Heard of and Don't Care About
I was excited to see the new show "Future Food," on Planet Green. If you don't get Planet Green, it's a station that ostensibly only deals with eco-friendly stuff. So of course it's a channel that I don't watch much but always feel like I should.
"Future Food" sounded promising. It's a reality show, of sorts, about a cutting-edge Chicago restaurant that uses unconventional, scientific means to create new foods. They'll use liquid nitrogen, for example, to see if they can make watermelon into a passable substitute for tuna. You know, that kind of thing.
I'm a big fan of food. I'm addicted to it, really, eating it almost every day. I'm not so into quantity as I am into quality. And I love trying new, weird foods. That's adventure for me. Put me in an El Savadoran/Norwegian hot dog-flavored ice cream place and I'm happy as a clam with butter sauce. Some people go climb mountains or drive racecars or beat sharks with a bat or whatever they do -- I go to exotic restaurants and try food from countries that I didn't even realize had food.
So eating at this Chicago restaurant of "Future Food" would be a dream come true for me. Watching the restaurant's chefs screw around, unfortunately, was not. Like too many chefs, they're overly intense and competitive, perverting cooking, this ancient and inherently beautiful art, into an opportunity to high-five each other and scream obscenities.
They awkwardly stuff competition into everything they do. In one episode, they made some unusual crepes and then challenged this very nice and respectable Frenchman, an acknowledged crepe master, to a crepe-off. These schmucks talked a lot about "kicking his ass" while the nice old Frenchman smiled gamely. I felt ashamed for America.
And then there's the fact that these guys are really, really, dweeby. When Goldberg and Mick Foley scream obscenities and high-five each other after "beating up" the Undertaker, you're kinda like, "OK, that's dumb, but look at them. What else are they supposed to do?" But when pencil-thin, googly-eyed dorks scream obscenities and high-five after making some really tasty crepes, you're kinda like "Oh c'mon now. You're not fooling anyone. Go home and do play some D&D like you're supposed to. Another high-five and you'll probably injure yourself."
Side topic for a second -- is it still OK to high-five? I mean, if you're Joe Mauer and you just hit a ten-run home run to beat the Yankees in the World Series, yes, high-fiving makes sense. But are mere mortals still really allowed to high-five? I can't really think of an opportunity in which it would be a viable action for me. But I could be wrong about this one.
At any rate, I also worry that this is the first step in Planet Green slipping away their main mission, a la the History Channel. In case you didn't hear, the History Channel does not actually show anything remotely relating to history nowadays. It's kinda like how MTV doesn't show music videos. The History Channel instead shows reality shows about people with weird jobs -- ice road truckers, ghost hunters, shark-beaters-with-a-bat, that kind of thing. These "Future Food" folks were trying to devise ways to waste less food or buy less food that had large carbon footprints, so there was some eco-stuff in there. I'm just worried that a few years from now Planet Green will be showing "Ghost Truckers," a show about people who investigate haunted trucks and discover that when they pulled him from the twisted, burning wreck, he looked like ... this!
"Future Food" sounded promising. It's a reality show, of sorts, about a cutting-edge Chicago restaurant that uses unconventional, scientific means to create new foods. They'll use liquid nitrogen, for example, to see if they can make watermelon into a passable substitute for tuna. You know, that kind of thing.
I'm a big fan of food. I'm addicted to it, really, eating it almost every day. I'm not so into quantity as I am into quality. And I love trying new, weird foods. That's adventure for me. Put me in an El Savadoran/Norwegian hot dog-flavored ice cream place and I'm happy as a clam with butter sauce. Some people go climb mountains or drive racecars or beat sharks with a bat or whatever they do -- I go to exotic restaurants and try food from countries that I didn't even realize had food.
So eating at this Chicago restaurant of "Future Food" would be a dream come true for me. Watching the restaurant's chefs screw around, unfortunately, was not. Like too many chefs, they're overly intense and competitive, perverting cooking, this ancient and inherently beautiful art, into an opportunity to high-five each other and scream obscenities.
They awkwardly stuff competition into everything they do. In one episode, they made some unusual crepes and then challenged this very nice and respectable Frenchman, an acknowledged crepe master, to a crepe-off. These schmucks talked a lot about "kicking his ass" while the nice old Frenchman smiled gamely. I felt ashamed for America.
And then there's the fact that these guys are really, really, dweeby. When Goldberg and Mick Foley scream obscenities and high-five each other after "beating up" the Undertaker, you're kinda like, "OK, that's dumb, but look at them. What else are they supposed to do?" But when pencil-thin, googly-eyed dorks scream obscenities and high-five after making some really tasty crepes, you're kinda like "Oh c'mon now. You're not fooling anyone. Go home and do play some D&D like you're supposed to. Another high-five and you'll probably injure yourself."
Side topic for a second -- is it still OK to high-five? I mean, if you're Joe Mauer and you just hit a ten-run home run to beat the Yankees in the World Series, yes, high-fiving makes sense. But are mere mortals still really allowed to high-five? I can't really think of an opportunity in which it would be a viable action for me. But I could be wrong about this one.
At any rate, I also worry that this is the first step in Planet Green slipping away their main mission, a la the History Channel. In case you didn't hear, the History Channel does not actually show anything remotely relating to history nowadays. It's kinda like how MTV doesn't show music videos. The History Channel instead shows reality shows about people with weird jobs -- ice road truckers, ghost hunters, shark-beaters-with-a-bat, that kind of thing. These "Future Food" folks were trying to devise ways to waste less food or buy less food that had large carbon footprints, so there was some eco-stuff in there. I'm just worried that a few years from now Planet Green will be showing "Ghost Truckers," a show about people who investigate haunted trucks and discover that when they pulled him from the twisted, burning wreck, he looked like ... this!
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Poop Journal, Vol. 1
Two poops before 9, yet again. That seems to be a trend lately. The first comes on with alacrity and force, about two sips into my first cup of coffee. It's always a big, solid dark one, a strong, forceful leader, the Tony Soprano of the day's poops. The second is less intense, but still insistent, and tends to be lighter and more scattered in form. More of a Christopher Moltisanti, if you will.
Two poops before 9 a.m. always makes me wonder, though. That seems excessive. Is it something I'm eating? Do some foods yield a lot more waste product than others? If so, they should find out what foods yield very little poop material and feed it to cats. Then I'd have to change the litterbox less often.
I'd be very interested in poop research. I mean, I know scientists will study owl poop (which they charmingly call "owl pellets") and other animal poops ("bolus" seems to be the euphemism), but I wonder how many study human poop (and what their euphemism would be). I suppose a lot of connections are made between human poop and diseases, but I'm more interested in questions like "Why does it sometimes come out in one solid chunk sometimes and other times come out as a lot of little pieces?" "Why does it sometimes take about 40 wipes to get all the poop residue out and sometimes take just a couple?" That latter question is especially pressing for me personally -- because of the large amount of pooping and the concomitant amount of wiping I do daily, the ol' asshole can get pretty raw. It's not uncommon to see little blood spots on the toilet paper. Not good. My lifelong dream is to have a bidet and just skip the whole wiping process entirely.
I wonder if I might reach in farther than most people when wiping, though. It's not like I do it for fun of course -- I have to get that stuff out. I always have to make conscious effort to relax my asshole as much as possible and then really reach in far to get to some sort of inner layer. I think of it like trying to brush a shark's inner row of teeth. I don't know if that's true for everybody, or if maybe I have an unsually complex and layered asshole.
I also find that anything but the best toilet paper tends to break apart in mid-wipe, resulting in poop residue on my finger, which is of course very unpleasant. So nowadays I shell out for the top-of-the-line stuff, the toilet paper made of advanced polymers and equipped with special blue bristles for those hard-to-reach places.
Congratulations! You made it to the end of a very disgusting post. You win $1. To claim your prize, carefully print the words "poop journal read in full!" on a 3X5 card and send it to:
Chris E. Keedei Poop Journal Promotion
1333 Mockingbird Lane
Funkytown, AL 54321
Thanks for playing!
Two poops before 9 a.m. always makes me wonder, though. That seems excessive. Is it something I'm eating? Do some foods yield a lot more waste product than others? If so, they should find out what foods yield very little poop material and feed it to cats. Then I'd have to change the litterbox less often.
I'd be very interested in poop research. I mean, I know scientists will study owl poop (which they charmingly call "owl pellets") and other animal poops ("bolus" seems to be the euphemism), but I wonder how many study human poop (and what their euphemism would be). I suppose a lot of connections are made between human poop and diseases, but I'm more interested in questions like "Why does it sometimes come out in one solid chunk sometimes and other times come out as a lot of little pieces?" "Why does it sometimes take about 40 wipes to get all the poop residue out and sometimes take just a couple?" That latter question is especially pressing for me personally -- because of the large amount of pooping and the concomitant amount of wiping I do daily, the ol' asshole can get pretty raw. It's not uncommon to see little blood spots on the toilet paper. Not good. My lifelong dream is to have a bidet and just skip the whole wiping process entirely.
I wonder if I might reach in farther than most people when wiping, though. It's not like I do it for fun of course -- I have to get that stuff out. I always have to make conscious effort to relax my asshole as much as possible and then really reach in far to get to some sort of inner layer. I think of it like trying to brush a shark's inner row of teeth. I don't know if that's true for everybody, or if maybe I have an unsually complex and layered asshole.
I also find that anything but the best toilet paper tends to break apart in mid-wipe, resulting in poop residue on my finger, which is of course very unpleasant. So nowadays I shell out for the top-of-the-line stuff, the toilet paper made of advanced polymers and equipped with special blue bristles for those hard-to-reach places.
Congratulations! You made it to the end of a very disgusting post. You win $1. To claim your prize, carefully print the words "poop journal read in full!" on a 3X5 card and send it to:
Chris E. Keedei Poop Journal Promotion
1333 Mockingbird Lane
Funkytown, AL 54321
Thanks for playing!
Monday, March 8, 2010
"The Hurt Locker" = "Lethal Weapon" Goes to Iraq!
I saw "The Hurt Locker" the day before the Oscars, and assumed it would be my favorite Best Picture nominee. It certainly seemed like the award represented a battle between Overrated Big-Budget Special-Effects-Laden Family Drama ("Avatar") and Scrappy, Meaningful, Edgy Indie That Smart People Prefer ("The Hurt Locker"). When those type of struggles arise, I'm usually 100% on the side of the indie, because my identity is very much wrapped up in being the smart person. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that "The Hurt Locker" sucked.
There were some good points. It was well-directed. It had a lot of great individual scenes involving bomb defusing and such. There was good detail about what that's really like. The problem was that the script sucked.
There was no plot, and the characters were one-note. The main character was this white guy who came in on an established unit and Played By His Own Rules. Yes, He Did Things His Way, was very irrevent, made bad-ass offhand quips, endangered everyone needlessly with pointless bravado, and wouldn't you know it? He always turned out to be right in the end!
Then on the sidelines, you have the black dude. He was always saying things like "Sir, don't you want the protective suit?!" "Sir, we have to get going -- we don't have much time!" "Come back here or I'm going to have to report you to the principal!" (OK, he didn't say that one. But I wouldn't have been surprised if he had.) Basically, he was the cautious, rule-bound one, the one who was actually following well-established protocols that I'm betting are there for a very good reason -- and he was always wrong in the end. He quickly became nothing but a foil for White Guy's preternatural super-awesomeness.
It's basically just the "Lethal Weapon" formula transported to bomb-disposal units in Iraq. You have the wild-ass white guy who runs on instinct, rules be damned. And then you have the cautious black dude being dragged along, muttering "I'm getting too old for this shit!" White guy's always right, but we love the black dude anyway, because he's so adorable, the way he approaches things in a sane, rational way that doesn't threaten everyone's lives! Aww, look at him try! He'll never be as good as the white guy, but maybe he can learn a thing or two by basking in his glow!
Even the non-bomb-disposal scenes only existed to reinforce this dynamic. They get drunk in one scene, and of course it's the black guy who passes out and has to be dragged to his bed. In the end (which I'm going to ruin for you, because there's not much to ruin anyway), White Guy and Black Guy have a heart-to-heart, which basically just involves Black Guy tearfully asking White Guy, "How come you're so awesome?" White Guy doesn't really answer, but I was yelling at the TV "Because this is a simple-minded hero-worship-fest, with no real characters or plot!"
Then White Guy went back to his boring family stateside, and nothing much happened, beyond White Guy realizing that he has to go back to Iraq. So that's it then -- that's all he is, a perfectly perfect bomb disposal machine. Yes, I get that would be really hard to adjust to normal life after such a dangerous year. But he doesn't really go through any sort of struggle to come to his conclusion to return. The whole sequence only reinforces that he's not so much a character as a cliche.
The real best film of the year, by the way, was "Up in the Air." Or maybe "Up," which I didn't see, but probably got immediately disqualified in most people's minds because it doesn't fit the profile of a best picture (i.e., it's animated). I think most voters didn't even really consider either movie. I think they got caught by the Big-Budget Special Effects-Fest vs. Edgy Indie dichotomy, picked their sides, and that was that. It's a shame.
There were some good points. It was well-directed. It had a lot of great individual scenes involving bomb defusing and such. There was good detail about what that's really like. The problem was that the script sucked.
There was no plot, and the characters were one-note. The main character was this white guy who came in on an established unit and Played By His Own Rules. Yes, He Did Things His Way, was very irrevent, made bad-ass offhand quips, endangered everyone needlessly with pointless bravado, and wouldn't you know it? He always turned out to be right in the end!
Then on the sidelines, you have the black dude. He was always saying things like "Sir, don't you want the protective suit?!" "Sir, we have to get going -- we don't have much time!" "Come back here or I'm going to have to report you to the principal!" (OK, he didn't say that one. But I wouldn't have been surprised if he had.) Basically, he was the cautious, rule-bound one, the one who was actually following well-established protocols that I'm betting are there for a very good reason -- and he was always wrong in the end. He quickly became nothing but a foil for White Guy's preternatural super-awesomeness.
It's basically just the "Lethal Weapon" formula transported to bomb-disposal units in Iraq. You have the wild-ass white guy who runs on instinct, rules be damned. And then you have the cautious black dude being dragged along, muttering "I'm getting too old for this shit!" White guy's always right, but we love the black dude anyway, because he's so adorable, the way he approaches things in a sane, rational way that doesn't threaten everyone's lives! Aww, look at him try! He'll never be as good as the white guy, but maybe he can learn a thing or two by basking in his glow!
Even the non-bomb-disposal scenes only existed to reinforce this dynamic. They get drunk in one scene, and of course it's the black guy who passes out and has to be dragged to his bed. In the end (which I'm going to ruin for you, because there's not much to ruin anyway), White Guy and Black Guy have a heart-to-heart, which basically just involves Black Guy tearfully asking White Guy, "How come you're so awesome?" White Guy doesn't really answer, but I was yelling at the TV "Because this is a simple-minded hero-worship-fest, with no real characters or plot!"
Then White Guy went back to his boring family stateside, and nothing much happened, beyond White Guy realizing that he has to go back to Iraq. So that's it then -- that's all he is, a perfectly perfect bomb disposal machine. Yes, I get that would be really hard to adjust to normal life after such a dangerous year. But he doesn't really go through any sort of struggle to come to his conclusion to return. The whole sequence only reinforces that he's not so much a character as a cliche.
The real best film of the year, by the way, was "Up in the Air." Or maybe "Up," which I didn't see, but probably got immediately disqualified in most people's minds because it doesn't fit the profile of a best picture (i.e., it's animated). I think most voters didn't even really consider either movie. I think they got caught by the Big-Budget Special Effects-Fest vs. Edgy Indie dichotomy, picked their sides, and that was that. It's a shame.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Movie Reviews: Movies I Haven't Seen
The problem with movies is that typically, you can't form an opinion on them unless you've seen them. But to see them takes time and money, which you'd rather not waste if you're pretty sure they're going to be awful. So I prefer to judge movies based on the ads. Easier, cheaper, more fun.
I watched a lot of Olympics, so I can recite verbatim pretty much any of the 6 or so ads they had playing over and over throughout. Two were for movies: "Cop-Out" and ... uh ... I forget the other one.
"Cop-Out"
My immediate reaction to this one was simply "Are you fucking kidding me?" So wait, you have the hard-as-nails white cop, played by Bruce Willis, and his wild-ass black partner, played by Tracy Morgan. And they may be, shall we say, buddies? These cops? Ergo, they are buddy-cops? It's so cliche it's almost genius. Is this a parody? The ads didn't make it seem like it was. I'm going to proceed assuming that it isn't.
Assuming that this is a straight exploitation of the buddy-cop formula, the name is the real beauty part. Like most bad movie titles, it's devised to be as easy to remember as possible: It's a well-worn phrase in the English language, and it has "cop" in it so you can easily associate with that one cop movie with the funny black guy. That's all par for the course -- the great part is that the phrase "cop-out" actually means "evading any sort of effort!!!" It's as if the movie is telling us "Hey, we realize we're not even trying here. We're just pushing some crap through the system to make a buck. You know it, and we know it, so let's just get this over with." Next we're going to see a movie about employees of the New York subway system called "Token Effort." Or a movie about a guy making a crappy movie called "I Hope This Movie Covers Expenses in the First Weekend and Gets Some Overseas Business Because It Sure Won't Have Legs."
My brother-in-law always talked about writing a buddy-cop movie, and allowing himself same exact amount of time to make the movie that the movie would run. So, basically, you could improv an entire movie in two hours. I think someone stole that idea for "Cop-Out."
I'm still not sure it's not a parody. If it is, my review could change dramatically. In fact, it would be my favorite movie ever if it turned out to be written by the writers of "The Onion" and it actually killed off Tracy Morgan in the first few minutes, replacing him with another gruff, white loner cop. Maybe have this new partner also played by Bruce Willis, except with a mustache. Bruce and Bruce II would hit it off immediately, and spend the rest of the movie at a bar. Then they fall for each other and spend the final half hour making love. Of all the actors in the world, I think Bruce Willis would be the perfect choice for a character who spends the whole movie making love to himself.
There would be so many ways to screw with the audience on this one. Why don't more filmmakers do that? I would. I would make a movie in which, after an hour of a typical plot about the CIA or a wacky family's Christmas celebration or whatever, the entire world explodes for no reason, and the last hour is just a long shot of empty space.
Or better: Maybe a period piece in which well-mannered and overdressed people sit in an English manor, and nothing much happens at all. Several plot lines get started ("Wait, Mr. Noseworthy has rudely failed to appear for our morning constitution around the garden!"), only to have them immediately resolved in an anti-climactic way ("Oh, actually, Mr. Noseworthy's waiting outside for you." "Oh, never mind then.") It goes on and on like that for an hour, and then suddenly Boba Fett bursts in through a window and starts shooting everyone. Then Rambo bursts out of a kitchen door and starts shooting Boba Fett and his army of Oompa-Loompas. Eventually Rambo gets pinned down, and as Boba levels his gun at Rambo's face, he makes a long and dumb speech about Rambo killing his aunt or something. Then he says "OK, Rambo, say your prayers," and suddenly, at the last second, Peter O'Toole appears and shoots Boba in the back with a bazooka. It turns out he was Mr. Noseworthy the whole time! Close-up on O'Toole, who says, dramatically, "I'm ready for my walk around the garden!" Fade to credits. Thunderous applause.
Anyway, that's all besides the point. "Cop-Out" looks excruciatingly bad, and though I love Tracy Morgan and think he should be in every movie, I would rather chop off my own balls and eat them than see "Cop-Out."
"The Other Movie"
Uhh ... I still can't remember what the other movie was that I saw ads for constantly during the Olympics. You guys watched the Olympics -- what was it?
P.S.: I looked it up and "Cop-Out" is indeed meant to be tongue-in-cheek. But how far in cheek, really? The gags in the ads really don't look very tongue-in-cheek; they look like they were cut straight out of "48 Hours." The alleged tongue-in-cheekness may itself by a cop-out enabling them to lazily run through an easy formula and still save some face.
But regardless, the clincher is that it was directed by Kevin Smith, the worst, most smug, most painfully unfunny director in history. That clinches it: I would happily chop of my balls and both my legs, gouge out my eyes, and carve out my still-beating heart so I could use my last dying moments to eat them all raw rather than see "Cop-Out."
I watched a lot of Olympics, so I can recite verbatim pretty much any of the 6 or so ads they had playing over and over throughout. Two were for movies: "Cop-Out" and ... uh ... I forget the other one.
"Cop-Out"
My immediate reaction to this one was simply "Are you fucking kidding me?" So wait, you have the hard-as-nails white cop, played by Bruce Willis, and his wild-ass black partner, played by Tracy Morgan. And they may be, shall we say, buddies? These cops? Ergo, they are buddy-cops? It's so cliche it's almost genius. Is this a parody? The ads didn't make it seem like it was. I'm going to proceed assuming that it isn't.
Assuming that this is a straight exploitation of the buddy-cop formula, the name is the real beauty part. Like most bad movie titles, it's devised to be as easy to remember as possible: It's a well-worn phrase in the English language, and it has "cop" in it so you can easily associate with that one cop movie with the funny black guy. That's all par for the course -- the great part is that the phrase "cop-out" actually means "evading any sort of effort!!!" It's as if the movie is telling us "Hey, we realize we're not even trying here. We're just pushing some crap through the system to make a buck. You know it, and we know it, so let's just get this over with." Next we're going to see a movie about employees of the New York subway system called "Token Effort." Or a movie about a guy making a crappy movie called "I Hope This Movie Covers Expenses in the First Weekend and Gets Some Overseas Business Because It Sure Won't Have Legs."
My brother-in-law always talked about writing a buddy-cop movie, and allowing himself same exact amount of time to make the movie that the movie would run. So, basically, you could improv an entire movie in two hours. I think someone stole that idea for "Cop-Out."
I'm still not sure it's not a parody. If it is, my review could change dramatically. In fact, it would be my favorite movie ever if it turned out to be written by the writers of "The Onion" and it actually killed off Tracy Morgan in the first few minutes, replacing him with another gruff, white loner cop. Maybe have this new partner also played by Bruce Willis, except with a mustache. Bruce and Bruce II would hit it off immediately, and spend the rest of the movie at a bar. Then they fall for each other and spend the final half hour making love. Of all the actors in the world, I think Bruce Willis would be the perfect choice for a character who spends the whole movie making love to himself.
There would be so many ways to screw with the audience on this one. Why don't more filmmakers do that? I would. I would make a movie in which, after an hour of a typical plot about the CIA or a wacky family's Christmas celebration or whatever, the entire world explodes for no reason, and the last hour is just a long shot of empty space.
Or better: Maybe a period piece in which well-mannered and overdressed people sit in an English manor, and nothing much happens at all. Several plot lines get started ("Wait, Mr. Noseworthy has rudely failed to appear for our morning constitution around the garden!"), only to have them immediately resolved in an anti-climactic way ("Oh, actually, Mr. Noseworthy's waiting outside for you." "Oh, never mind then.") It goes on and on like that for an hour, and then suddenly Boba Fett bursts in through a window and starts shooting everyone. Then Rambo bursts out of a kitchen door and starts shooting Boba Fett and his army of Oompa-Loompas. Eventually Rambo gets pinned down, and as Boba levels his gun at Rambo's face, he makes a long and dumb speech about Rambo killing his aunt or something. Then he says "OK, Rambo, say your prayers," and suddenly, at the last second, Peter O'Toole appears and shoots Boba in the back with a bazooka. It turns out he was Mr. Noseworthy the whole time! Close-up on O'Toole, who says, dramatically, "I'm ready for my walk around the garden!" Fade to credits. Thunderous applause.
Anyway, that's all besides the point. "Cop-Out" looks excruciatingly bad, and though I love Tracy Morgan and think he should be in every movie, I would rather chop off my own balls and eat them than see "Cop-Out."
"The Other Movie"
Uhh ... I still can't remember what the other movie was that I saw ads for constantly during the Olympics. You guys watched the Olympics -- what was it?
P.S.: I looked it up and "Cop-Out" is indeed meant to be tongue-in-cheek. But how far in cheek, really? The gags in the ads really don't look very tongue-in-cheek; they look like they were cut straight out of "48 Hours." The alleged tongue-in-cheekness may itself by a cop-out enabling them to lazily run through an easy formula and still save some face.
But regardless, the clincher is that it was directed by Kevin Smith, the worst, most smug, most painfully unfunny director in history. That clinches it: I would happily chop of my balls and both my legs, gouge out my eyes, and carve out my still-beating heart so I could use my last dying moments to eat them all raw rather than see "Cop-Out."
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