Steven Spielberg's "The Lost World: Jurassic Park 2"

Little boys who are not fascinated by dinosaurs inevitably end up with bodies in their sheds, so of course "Jurassic Park" was 1993's fantasy-fulfiller. That Spielberg also made "Schindler's List" that year only goes to show that he's one of those obvious miracles you're so used to you don't even notice, like rainbows or the respiratory system. But rewatching "The Lost World" last night I was reminded that, also like the respiratory system, Spielberg can choke. Luckily one knows who to blame, and that's David Koepp, who I like to hate on lately for some reason- (probably 'cause I always wished I would be the one to wrote the next Indiana Jones? Envious fanboy me!)
"The Lost World" has three awesome (if cluttered) set pieces, one of them a literal cliffhanger, but it also has a noticeably wretched screenplay; looks like raptors chomped through the original "King Kong" script. Holes holes holes.
Watch for the moment in which Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum) is surprised by the info that his girlfriend, Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) is already in the island of Sorna with the dinosaurs- a good reason for him to join the team, right?
SERIOUSLY, HOW DID HIS GIRLFRIEND NOT TELL HIM THAT SHE WAS GOING OFF TO EXAMINE DINOSAURS IN AN ISLAND, AND POSSIBLY DIE, AND... No, really, seriously. Not even a little note? A cell phone call? How had they not discussed this?
The movie doesn't even give us a "Thank You For Smoking" "line-that-explains-everything!" How easy would it have been to say: "We sworn her to secrecy and she knew that you would disapprove of her going to the island, so that's why she's been evading you for a while"? None. Instead, it looks like she's a ditz who went on a safari and simply forgot to tell her boyfriend, and he's been doing too much coke to notice his girlfriend is in an island off Costa Rica. Of course, the problem is that this movie is not about human relationships: He might as well be her cousin or her accountant, and is as emotionally disconnected from Sarah as he is from his unexplainably black daughter. Now, I'm all for the mixed castes, I'm one third Chippewa myself, but I'm sure SOME of Jeff Goldblum's genes would have been imprinted on his daughter's face, no? No, the girl looks nothing like him, who cares, the dinosaus are AWESOME STILL!
Another unexplainable moment: how does a T-Rex in the hold of a ship break loose, kill all the humans on-board, (which would involve him getting into small cabins which don't fit T-Rexes, btw) and then GOES BACK TO THE HOLD WHERE IT IS TRAPPED AGAIN?
Oh, man, for dinner with David Koepp, (you can bet that if I had dinner with Spielberg I would be too busy trying to not look like a groveling earthworm to bring up bad moments in his movies.)

"The Lost World" also includes a line so incredibly bad that it almost deserves immortalizing. Let me set it up:
The characters are scrambling up a trailer that's hanging over a cliff, treatening to fall. A rope is their only way to escape, and Sarah and Malcolm are climbing out. There's a freaking storm raging outside. It is VERY suspenseful! They've got seconds before the trailer falls off! You know what Ian screams at Sarah as they're hanging for their lives?

"Increase the rate of your climbing!"

INCREASE THE RATE OF YOUR CLIMBING!!! Are those words a human being could conjure in that situation? Is it meant as a joke? It could even be effective as a joke, but it's not shot as one. People like me always whine that action movies are all about: "Hurry up!" "Run!" "Duck!" "Watch out!" "Stand back"! But Jesus, sometimes that shit is absolutely necessary. Anything other than "Hurry the fuck up" is too unlikely!
It's like sex: bad dialogue can ruin an otherwise perfect moment.

(Kind apologists will say that Malcolm is a mathematician, a theorist as we remember him from the original movie- great, but Goldblum, who really IS the only amusing actor in this movie, has not played the character as a geek likely to break into mathematical dialogue in times of danger. It's just a horrible line. Bad movie. Sprinkled with the awesomeness that prehistoric creatures are. This is all really a prelude to the fact that I've rented "10,000 B.C.")

Anthony Trollope's "The Warden"

Literary lore says that Trollope's status as Dickens' more prolific/ more "adult" competitor decreased after Trollope's matter of fact autobiography described his own literary technique in terms so appallingly mundane that his artistic reputation suffered for almost half a century. Trollope's habits were pretty much to get up early, knock off a bunch of pages, then go to his "real" job as a civil servant, doing stuff that was actually IMPORTANT. Muse schmuse. But how could THAT have surprised anyone who'd been paying attention? Trollope is the depictor of the mundane drama, of the emotions fraught in getting a promotion at your office, of the torments of saving enough money to add an extra wing to your otherwise bucolic country house.

The first of the Barsetshire Chronicles, Trollope's "The Warden" is a slim tome, and the plot couldn't be simpler. Septimus Harding is the well-meaning warden of a Barchester hospital that charitably houses 12 men too old to provide for themselves, as the establishment has done for 400 years. The warden gets paid a certain sum, and the old men a much smaller stipend. His daughter's boyfriend is a bold reformer (he's literally called John Bold) who thinks the system is wrong, and the division of wealth is unfair, "La Internationale", etc etc. Is Bold right- and then why is he making everyone miserable? Septimus Harding is embarrassed by the circumstances- he's worried everyone thinks he's a crook, when he knows he's not. He quits his job for a lower paying position in the local clergy. The hospital pretty much goes to hell, and the old men start dying off without their loving warden by their side.
Well, there, I spoiled the thing. Exiting, eh? That's pretty much all there is to it.
But it perfectly encompasses why Trollope can never exactly be an idol of the young. His brilliance allows him to see it both ways, sure, and he satirizes his middle class milieu- but it IS his milieu. He's not one for boat shaking.

"The Warden"'s philosophy: "Maybe the old ways are a little unfair to the poor, but, hey, who doesn't like a good fox hunt every now and then? Why risk losing that?"

Has it Been a Week Already?

Dear Imaginary Reader:
I know, I know! There you were looking for daily solace and I neglected my duties. Or so you perceived- but isn't perception the wicked stepmother of deception? While my writing energies appear depleted to many an observer, I am actually putting the finishing touches to my monogram, "Dorsal Striations of the North American Chipmunks, and How They Foretell the Rise of New Jerusalem." I was also busy mourning George Carlin's death, but it was mostly the chipmunks.

"The Other Boleyn Girl"

We've heard enough about Anne Boleyn, (Scarlett Johansson) and Mary Boleyn (Natalie Portman). Now it's time for The Other Boleyn Girl (Eric Bana) to shine as she tries to seduce King Henry VII (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) who is unhappily married to a prissy British Girl (Emily Mortimer).
Maybe that was "Match Point"?

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Season 8 Volume 2, No Future for You

It's still just not the same.
But I have to say Volume 2 is a marked improvement for Buffy's comic book season, and one need not wonder why: Hurts to say it, but Brian K. Vaughan is a better Buffy writer than Joss Whedon. Kid is prolific and there's simply no one like him as a creator of sheer suspense right now, whether in graphic form or in his TV work.
He wisely shifts the focus to Faith. Faith's is a character whose physicality and emotional struggles translate better, (is she more of a cartoon?). The sad fact is that this season's Buffy is a subdued, uninteresting character. I don't know if it's because the series was successful enough in wrapping her up emotionally, or if it's because so much of Buffy's appeal is, in retrospect, in the nuances of Sarah Michelle Gellar's acting. Her adorable tormented pouting said so much more than her ass kicking.
Maybe I will always just miss those characters?

"Folklore"

Until the PS3 comes out with more ginuwine JRPGs, (which to me are the core of a mature system's appeal), stuff like "Folklore" will do. A fun little decoy, "Folklore" is an action adventure/ monster collector with a beautiful world design plastered on a limp mystery. You play as kilt-wearing Ellen and brainy-yet-hunky reporter Keats; through a badly explained contrivance they arrive at the village of Doolin to solve vaguely eery murders. Then there's some stuff about the "Underworld" and "Faerys" and the "Ids" of "Folks". It all seems like a Japanese developer learned English by listening to one of those New Age Celtic soundtracks , but the fighting is varied and entertaining- which is good, because you have to run through the game two times. That includes beating bosses twice. It's hard to feel a sense of accomplishment when you finish a level, knowing you'll be right back at the beginning soon enough.

Spiritualized's "Songs in A and E"

If ever your suicide needs a soundtrack, why, here's Spiritualized's "Songs in A and E", an album that musters as much joie de vivre as morphine can inject into one person.

"A and E", (that's not a TV channel, that's the Accident and Emergency Ward) has more of the death march gospel of "Ladies and Gentleman We're Floating in Space", and it's really quite the thing to listen while people are wondering whether to pull your plug. Jason Pierce (or J. Spaceman, as the willing fans call him) has an indifferent but distinctive voice, and the lyrics work the same motifs over and over, (you'll get tired of the words "baby" "fire" "soul" "angel" "hell" and "yeah yeah yeah"), but you get what you came for, and what you came for are those mad-cherub walls of sound that build around you while you're gasping for life with one last badly functioning lung.

Michel Gondry's "Be Kind Rewind"

I feel the natural kinship that all dreamers share with Michel Gondry, in his music videos, in "Eternal Sunshine", even in "The Science of Sleep", which was too punishing on its hero, (but so would life have been). I liked "Be Kind Rewind". I got it. I can see history for the virtual re-imagining that it is, and if we can dream up empires out of ruins, of course we can build up glorious relationships out of the ruins they left behind. I remember that little video store with the VHS and the porn section and lots of "Ghostbusters," and Jackie Chan movies and "Glory" and "Dolly Dearest" in them, but I don't fault people for forgetting all about the past in cyclic spring cleanings. So I can sympathyze when the very poor and neglected gather around their burning memories and embellish them, (it's the history of mankind, and someday they will tell tales of Gooey Elmer and Bill Murray the First who battled against his demons and finally conquered them... or something or other.)
Still, I can see why this movie feels as though the Passaic hood is being patronized and saved by a French tourist out to salvage his imagination. You have to suspend your disbelief at the coat check and if you find yourself haggling with the coat check girl, this movie is not for you.

SUMMER MAD-VERTISING!!!

Dear Imaginary Reader:
I’ve mostly avoided the megaplex this summer, but being entirely removed from America’s pop life only reminds me of my obsolescence and consequent mortality, so I invited my retarded, pun-loving and possibly gay cousin who watches “Extra” to give us his assessment. These are his blurbs. I fear very much for his safety.



“Iron Man”- Imagine if instead of being bitten by a radioactive spider, Spider Man was burnt by an iron. The rest writes itself.

“Speed Racer”- It’s “Speed” meets “The Matrix” meets everyone’s indifference.

“Chronicles of Narnia”- “The Lord of the Rings” for people who burn homosexuals.

“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”: At long last, Indy whips it out again!




“Sex and the City”- It’s sexy AND city-y.

“Don’t Mess with the Zohan”- The movie may be messy, but Adam Sandler is Zo-Handsome!

“Kung Fu Panda”- I’ll watch Jack Black in anything, and if I don’t actually have to see him in the movie, it’s even better.

“The Happening”- I don’t think the world could like M. Night Shyamalan any more than it already does.

“Incredible Hulk”- It may say HULK, but I say Edward Norton is a HUNK.

“Wall-E”- It’s gonna be a Good-E!

“Hancock”- Anything that puts Will Smith and Cock together is gotta be a winner.

“Hellboy 2”- There was a Hellboy 1?



“The Love Guru”- Michael Myers is Guru-eat!

“The Dark Night”- I would do anything to see Heath Ledger smile again.

“The X-Files: I Want to Believe”- Kingdom of the Crystal Scully!

“The Mummy 3”- Brendan Fraser needs to WRAP things up with this DUSTY franchise and move on with his brilliant career!

“Pineapple Express”- It’s about people who use a pineapple for a dong. OUCH!!! What happened to all the bananas???

Walt and Skeezix 1921-1922

Joe Matt's obsession with "Gasoline Alley" in "Spent" led me to Drawn and Quarterly's ambitious effort to collect Frank King's looooooong running strip. "Walt and Skeezix" begins as sort of the "Penny Arcade" of its time, in that its comedy emerges from observing the nuances of a relatively new technological development, but blooms on from there into the slow burning saga of bygone Americana that comic nerds worship. (As Flaubert said: "Madame Bovary, c'est moi"). Incidentally, Joe Matt's collection is the backbone of this publication, so there's something to be said for OCD.

Mitchell Lichtenstein's "Teeth"

I won't exactly say that "Teeth" is good, but it has enough oddball elements to recommend it as a much needed satire about the pitiful American stand in sex education. Never mind that I think the whole "vagina dentata" trip is a fear wholly invented by Victorian librarians- most men seem quite ready to plunge into any orifice that looks wet enough.
Instead reflect on how this ocassionally gross black comedy underwent an advertising transformation between its well-received premiere at Sundance last year and its release as a "Dimension Extreme" movie.
Exhibit One: Satire a la "Election". Accurate and suggestive.

Exhibit Two: J-Horror. Effective- for a whole 'nother movie. It's not "The Eye"! It's "Teeth"!

"27 Dresses" by the chick who wrote "The Devil Wears Prada"- when a movie touts its screenwriter, oy!

See, I enjoy the concept of matrimony, and believe that you should totally hold on to that one wrinkly person for the rest of your life if you can, but when I watch shit like this I remember that I am simply not equipped to tolerate months of ridiculous bitching over one impossibly expensive ritual. Besides, everyone knows that if I get married, I plan to say: "I take you, Rachel...No, Emily! Emily!". I'm starting to suspect I'm a genetic dead end.

Roberto Bolano's "The Savage Detectives"

Great novel, like "Y Tu Mama Tambien" after a dose of Burroughs. Although at least three people who gave it a try on my recommendation sent back negative reviews. They all hated it for different things, either "it wasn't my thing" (too graphic, girls?), "It had too many Spics in it!" (Yes, that will happen in South America), and the more puzzling review:
"I was really enjoying this book until I looked it up online and I heard that the guy was about to finish his masterpiece and then he died of a liver disease and he couldn't finish it, so I just didn't want to deal with that death aura around it. It was too depressing."
?
Yeah, one should never read books written by dead people, that's just plain creepy.
Maybe that's how people catch DEATH, by passing it around in books! It's contagious,

Tim Russert died today.
it's Friday the 13, and everybody knows it's a bad time to be a young camp counselor.

Jane Campion's "In the Flesh"

Surely you recall this 2003 gem by "feminist auteur" Campion for its racy scenes involving Meg Ryan, (her lips were then beginning to undergo the painful inflammation that would eventually put her career in hold.) I hated "In the Cut" then, but have come to enjoy what I assume is an artsy homage to the Cinemax movie- the way its plot, dialogue and characters ring false every step of the way may actually be a clue as to how it's all a feverish sex dream by a woman with a huge disbalance between her self-esteem (very low) and her penchant for picking the worst possible mates (very high). You know your relationship meters are off when, after kinky sex, you ask the love of your life: "So, be honest, are you that serial killer that's been dismembering half the neighborhood", and instead of saying "No", he mumbles something like: "Don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong. Now, blowjob." I've even gotta question the "kinkiness" of the sex. Everything about the movie implies we're watching a woman explore the depths of her sexual depravities, but we just see some masturbation and a little handcuff action. Things are kinkier in "Two and a Half Men"! Clearly, Campion feels the most depraved thing a woman could ever do is talking to, eeew, men, who are one and all unbalanced killers. But come on, look at Mark Ruffalo's 'tache here. You can't act all huffy when he turns out to not be husband material!

Yes, that's me keeping you up to date with the seventh art.

Sebastian Faulk's "Devil May Care"

Sure, it’s cute to see James Bond sneer at those whiper-snapping Rolling Stones with their rock and roll and their marijuana, but I don't know if I needed to be reminded what a dinosaur my favorite super spy is.

The Onion Movie

The newspaper is always better than the movie.

I'm not sure what led me to think this could possibly be good; what's intriguing is how even though it was supposedly released this week I had the oddest, most pervasive sense of deja vu all through it, as though I've seen this years and years ago and mercifully buried the memories. It's not just because the lame skits are postmarked 1999, (seriously, Britney Spears jokes? And not Britney's crazy, or Britney-with-K-Fed, or even Britney-with-snake: no, first wave Britney-in-schoolgirl-outfit jokes.) I think there's some sort of mystery here, probably solved with a visit to IMDB that I won't bother taking.
I am a monster of industriousness.

Willie Nelson's "The Troublemaker"

Dear Imaginary Reader:
It's been such a long time since a song gave me goosebumps, so this one needs to be revived... It's all in the delivery, mind you, that punchline... Oh, man. Beaufitul song.


I could tell the moment that I saw him,
He was nothing but the troublemaking kind
His hair was much too long and his motley group of friends
Had nothing but rebellion on their minds.
He's rejected the establishment completely
And I know for sure he's never held a job.
He just goes from town to town
Stirring up the young folks
'Til they're nothing but a disrespectful mob.
And I know for sure he's never joined the army
And served his country like we all have done.
He'd rather wear his sandals and his flowers
While others wage the war that must be won.
They arrested him last week and found him guilty
And sentenced him to die...but that's no great loss.
Friday they will take him to a place called Calvary
And hang that troublemaker to a cross.
MmmmmmHmm.......

That HMMMM HHMMMMM "think about it" at the end is killer, man... Get the MP3 now and celebrate Willie's 75th birthday. This one makes my brown eyes blue. Yeah, I'm some sort of an agnostic Christian most of the time.

Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist"

Precious gem from my high school English teacher (don't worry, Mrs. S, I won't reveal your identity!):
"I used to think Dickens was awesome until I went to college and learned he was terrible!"
To me, that will forever remain the phrase that symbolizes people's inability to sneeze without asking permission from people left and right. Yeah, Dickens is sentimental and flowery, but in a good way, it WORKS, it's good sentimentalism, he's one of the good guys who truly changed the world for the better. It takes a special Oscar Wilde-ish type of snob to sneer at things that make people better (as opposed to lulling them into retardation a la Mitch Albom.) I have some Dickens gaps I need to fill (Bleak House, Martin Chuzzlewitt), so I want to progress through it all again.
I love Dickens, Mrs. S! Sorry!
"The Pickwick Papers" were too episodic and cartoonish to do more than amuse me, but "Oliver Twist" is the proper beginning. The sarcasm! The horror! Those names! Browlow, Claypole, Grimwig, and of course, my fave:
MASTER BATES!!!
GET IT!!!
MASTER BATES!!!

Mwaaahahaha

I am eight years old at the time of this writing, a lonely orphan asking for more.

RECENT RETARDED TAGLINES

“Rambo”
LIVE FOR NOTHING, OR DIE FOR SOMETHING!
(Can I take C: Live for something? Please?)

“Cassandra’s Dream”
BLOOD IS BLOOD. FAMILY IS FAMILY.
(A Rose is a rose? A Woody Allen movie is a Woody Allen movie?)