Warren Ellis' "Transmetropolitan" Volumes 7-8

Spider Jerusalem has a revelation of purpose- like many such conceits, it's closely followed by an intimation of mortality. "Spider's Trash" and "Dirge," (the 7th and 8th volumes of "Transmetropolitan respectively) are definite pick-ups from 5 and 6 in the excitement factor. Spider finds himself facing the ultimate deadline: a degenerative brain disease brought on, surprisingly enough, not by the adventurous drug intake but by a noxious cloud of information pollen.



Before the final edition, Spider must bring down President "Smiler" Callahan's complete mess of a presidency. It won't be easy: trailed by filthy assistants Yelena Rossini and Channon Yarrow, Spider must contend with a sniper in a blur suit; a "blue flu" that has the City's cops conveniently calling in sick all at once; the murder of Callahan's wife; and a sudden ruinstorm that floods away the city's poorer sections while Smiler's grin extends. (Any allusions to Hurricane Katrina's mismanagement are entirely reader-provided: the issues were written long before that or September 11.)
The winning stand-alone rant is "Business," though: it effectively had me raging about the evils of child prostitution in A MADE UP FUTURE.

Warren Ellis' "Iron Man: Extremis"

You add a "T" to "Extremis" and you get what motivates Warren Ellis in this six-issue Iron Man volume, beautifully illustrated by Adi Granov and re-issued recently to hopfrog on the Iron Man movies.



Ellis' work here is not burdened by backstory, or cluttered with meaning like in "Transmetropolitan." On the minus side this can make for an unusually skeletal book for longtime Iron Fans; on the plus side, newcomers should have no problem jumping into this stand alone movie which is very comparable to Jon Favreau's flicks. Tony Stark, (here drawn with a Tom Cruise face, a squat wrestler's body, and a nerd's technological obsessions) aids a scientist named Maya Hansen after members of an extremist Kentucky militia steal a genetic tool called "Extremis" that reprograms the body from the DNA on out- can this same tool help Tony control Iron Man as a biological extension of self? (Spoiler: yes, it can, and it's awesome.) Ellis finds time for leisurely conversations about bio-engineering, the monetary compromises of scientific research, but there are the required amounts of bodies being blasted, bursting through walls, and crashing into car hoods. "Extremis" truly stands on Granov's digital paintings, a technique similar to Clayton Crain's. They do suffer from the general immobility of paintings in comics (Alex Ross is a fellow culprit, better at drawing poses than at suggesting movement) but as static moments they have a lot of gravitas.

The New Pornographer's "Together"- Not the Movie "Together" I Always Bring Up

The song has shaken me.



When Neko Case is not busy being Emmylou Harris to Jakob Dylan or doing her own stuff, she's at home with A.C Newman, Dan Bejar and, seemingly, the entirety of Ontario, as the New Pornographers.


ABOVE: Left to right: Dan Bejar, A.C. Newman, Little T., Neko Case, Ne-Yo, Panda Bear, C-Section, Killface Zimmerman, and the Rivercity Marching Band. Featured Guests: Broken Social Scene and the Arcade Fire.

(I had a friend call me years ago, all giddy with discovery: "Man, so there's this band right, and they're called... DAMN... THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS! That shizzat's gotta be hardcore!"
Me: "Er, you should probably listen to them before you get the lube out.")

I love the NP's poppy, convoluted romanticism; A.C. Newman's lyrics that seem to float out of meaning but after a few listens reveal themselves in unexpected ways; and when you add Neko Case's voice to that, the laws change.


Listen too long to one song: Here's the "Sing Me Spanish Techno" video. Somewhere in Madrid, Pedro Almodovar feels alluded to.


The back-and-forth made "Myriad Harbour" my favorite track from their previous album, "Challengers."


And although "Silver Jenny Dollar" is my personal pick from their fifth album, "Together," it's all good here: there's esoteric sweetness a-plenty in "Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk," "We End Up Together," "Your Moves," and the single "Crash Years."




ABOVE: Neko Case is hitting 40 with all the bad-assness she can conjure. And that's a lot of bad-assness.

Sylvain White's "The Losers"

I stepped away from our home showing of Sylvain White's "The Losers" to build myself a Dagwood-style sandwich. My brother asked if I wanted to pause the movie, and I said: "Nah, I'll catch up, plus I already saw it." "It just came out a few weeks ago," he said. "No, I mean I've seen it. Like, hundreds of times."


ABOVE: This scene was right out of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," for instance.

So have you: a rag tag team of misfits has to track down a sub-Bond supervillain with a weapon of mass destruction. In a green nod, that weapon of mass destruction is a 'sonic dematerializer that causes no pollution," and the supervillain seems to be quite proud of this ecological feat: he can blow up a city AND leave no carbon footprint while he's at it. (That supervillain is played by a sarcastic Jason Patric, with one hand hidden in a Michael Jacksonish glove.)
"The Losers" are, unfortunately, not loserish enough- in fact seem more than competent at what they do, which involves all sorts of fun action destruction. One gets the feeling the original Vertigo graphic novel by Andy Diggle had a far more humorous attitude, but here only Chris Evans gets good lines (well, by good I mean "ok"); Jeffrey Dean Morgan has to act dour as he beats up Zoe Saldana in a scene of foreplay that oughta have the nation's rapists cheering; the rest of the cast has to scrimp by with a few lines like: "Payback's a bitch!" "This time is personal!" "Yeah, take THAT, motherfucker!" One of "The Losers," Spaniard Oscar Jaenada, doesn't even get lines at all: he's the lucky one.
I came back with my sandwich. Yes, an explosion, and someone's been double crossed, as expected. There's a car chase like all the other car chases you've seen. Jason Patric is overacting with joy. Snappy, familiar comebacks abound. Everything's normal.
It's a ham and cheese sandwich, in case you were wondering.

Shawn Levy's "Date Night"

Tina Fey and Steve Carell are, of course, a very likable duo, but they're lost in Shawn Levy's overrated, over-hyped, TERRIBLE "Date Night," a movie that was promoted to "decent enough" by the sheer force of our communal good-will. This is exactly as uncool as "Wild Old Hot Dogs," and we're all one John Travolta appearance away from realizing it.

Now buy it from Amazon:

Paolo Sorrentino's "Il Divo: The Spectacular Life of Giulio Andreotti"

Now, THIS is Cinema Italiano.





Paolo Sorrentino's magnificent "Il Divo" begins with an inappropriate quote about power that suggests it doesn't always come with pomp and loud speeches: it can also strangle with ribbons and charm.
Charm, though, is not the key to Giulio Andreotti's success as a 7-time Italian Prime-Minister and head of the corrupt Christian Democratic Party, at least not in Toni Servillo's superb impersonation: Andreotti is an unpleasant, impenetrable hunchback who doesn't so much seduce as BORE people into frightened submission. Power, it seems, doesn't strangle with ribbons. It strangles with red-tape.



Variuously known as "Il Divo," "The Hunchback," "Beelzebub," "The Black Pope," and "The Sphinx," Andreotti is a (still living) figure of Dumasian reach: Like Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarino in the Musketeers saga, the man withstood accusations of fraud, conspiracy, and murder with the cryptic impassivity of the truly powerful, providing axioms for every situation. So he's accused of Mafia ties? "You can't help the friends you have. Even Jesus was friends with Judas." So he retaliates against his enemies? "God taught us to turn the other cheek when we're insulted. But also, wisely, God only gave us two cheeks." Is he fit to run for the Presidency? "I'm a short man, but I don't see any giants around."
"Il Divo" is eminently quotable, full of wit both verbal and visual: Quentin Tarantino should have loved the subtitles that crawl around when new characters are introduced; Martin Scorcese should have loved the rocking shoot-down montages; Francis Ford Coppola should have nodded knowingly during the scene in which Andreotti's public appearance at a horse race is juxtaposed with the murders the Minister has mandated, (oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, he was "acquited" and "there is no such thing as the Mafia." Right, right.)
Substance and style in the same party ticket, Paolo Sorrentino has made the rare political movie that manages to make direct accusations without being shrill or self-righteous, and it's simply one of the best films about power ever made. GO WATCH NOW, and you'll always think of Gustave Faure's "Pavane" when you're walking down an empty Italian street with your guilty conscience hunching you over. Take notes, DJ who will program my funeral's mix : "Pavane"'s gotta be in it.

Miguel Sapochnick's "Repo Men"

So remember how a year ago I said I would stop watching trash like "cult-wanna-be movies about reposessing organs"? I clearly did not try hard enough.



Naw, this is not the orinal "Repo Man" with Emilio Estevez; it's not even the similarly-themed "Repo: The Genetic Opera" with Anthony Head. This is just "Repo Men," directed by Miguel Sapochnick (a lotta Miguels breaking into the biz!).
It's based on "Repossession Mambo," a Philip K. Dickish novel by ex-Miamian Eric Garcia (who also wrote the book in which "Matchstick Men" was based). It stars Jude Law, Forest Whistaker, Alice Braga, Liev Schreiber and John Leguizamo. It has a neat premise, (in the future, you can buy any expensive artificial organ you need, but if you default, the repo men will swoop in and rip it out of you, effectively murdering you.)
It also has a huge gaping bloody hole where its reposessed brain should have been.



Remy (Law) and Jake (Whitaker) are best buds who work for the Union, a near-future organ-ization (Ha! I made that one up all by myself!) that mercilessly recovers livers, hearts and lungs from the clients who default in payment: given that a kidney might set you back half a million bucks, that's most of the clients. But when Remy himself gets implanted with an artificial heart, he's on the other side of the operation, (so to speak): when he can't pay the bill for his new blood-pumper, he goes on the run with a drugged up lounge singer (Braga, who gives "Cry Me a River" the Brazilian pronounciation you never knew it needed).
"Repo Men" wants to be a satire on abusive health care institutions and credit card companies: that's smart, but this movie is not smart enough to make the satire cutting instead of obvious. It also wants to be a nihilistic, "kill three thousand grunts in a row" Japanese brawler, but "Repo Men" is not dumb enough to make the massacres fun instead of appalling.
And what's with the poorly imagined near-future? I don't think I ever saw a sci-fi movie give up so quickly on its visionary predictions: "It's the exciting world of 2080! Well, 2030? That's why we didn't bothered with futuristic fashions! Oh, screw it, it all happens two months from now, that's why you can see that extra carrying an Iphone."

SORTA SPOILER:
I don't know how I can better get this message out there to creators of all stripes: "Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" was great. "Brazil" was great. The end of "Newhart" was great. Hell, I even liked "Vanilla Sky" more than anyone not in the Cameron Crowe household. But it's time to let that twist be, and come up with something else, because "IT WAS ALL A DREAM" is soporific. I mean, it's great if you're 16 and a pot dealer moved into town and you first get the idea that life might be an illusion in a hookah-smoking caterpillar's head, but by now we're all over that "dreams" crap, right?
(Looks over at adoring crowds of "Inception" fans)
Never mind. Guess once is never enough.

Buy this instead:

Justin Cronin's "The Passage"

Whether Justin Cronin call them virals or jumpers or vampires in his post-apocalyptic saga "The Passage," what he really means is zombies. It seems too much fantastical caviling to point out that the differences between a vampire and a zombie are not biological but atmospheric: they're both dead, but a vampire is dead with CLASS.



For all its length, "The Passage" merely goes through the stumbling motions of a horror epic: it wants to be "The Stand," "The Road," Robert Kirkman's "The Walking Dead"- but whereas I would say all three of those examples trascend genre, I'm afraid this very competent author DESCENDS into genre, which is the wrong way to go about it. This is the kind of book that the author presents with caveats: "It's a little different, but it's not some stupid horror thing, the vampires are just a metaphor, see, it's about, you know, FAMILY and LOVE and FAITH IN THE HUMAN SPIRIT and OPRAH BOOK CLUB...")
What a bunch of nancies! What happened to the '70s, man, when REAL horror writers were like: "This book is about me trying to make you bleed out of your eyes so I can collect your blood and summon Lord Azeroth with it! READ ON!"


ABOVE: HORROR THEN


ABOVE: HORROR NOW



Cronin's action is exciting enough, the writing is competent although overpraised; the problem here is the stunning amount of horror cliches, suggesting someone that's recently gone through a "best of" anthology.
Back to those zombie-vampires.
Cronin means well: most horror writers would immolate their firstborn to come up with a new classic creature that isn't a vampire, werewolf, zombie, blob, or H. R. Giger's alienish lizard-oids. Cronin's vampire is no vampire at all, it's a similar creature that likes the neck area and doesn't fare well in sunlight; it just doesn't stand enough on its own to merit a new name all to itself. I wish I could say "at least they don't sparkle," but they do kind of glow in the dark.
These vampires cause THE END OF THE WORLD (TM) after a MUTATED VIRUS (TM) is unleashed in a SECRET GOVERNMENT EXPERIMENT (TM), and then a COURAGEOUS SOLDIER (TM) and a CHILD WITH MAGICAL POWERS (TM) must embark on a LONG JOURNEY (TM). (There's even a RETARDED BUT KIND BLACK GUY WITH SUPERPOWERS (TM), a confluence of the worst stereotypes Stephen King bequeathed to the universe.)
This is set up in a thrilling manner- the problem is that Cronin doesn't know what to do AFTER the world ends. I can see where everyone got duped here: the first 200 or so pages of "The Passage" are derivative but stunning, so those busy reviewer-for-hires wrote their Hosannas before they got to the really tedious mid-section where all the tight action Cronin has set up disappears in a boring attempt at creating a sprawling community. Stephen King is good at writing about the lives of towns. Cronin, no matter how close his impersonation, is not Stephen King.


ABOVE: Not Stephen King. This is how nerdy writers pose when they're trying to suggest they're cool and in a biker-gang. Instead it looks like a mild-mannered English teacher wearing the jacket of the bear that just made violent love to his ass.

To conclude: the novel is over-hyped, unoriginal, its vampires are not cool enough, and its unwieldy structure (tight first act, boring second act, melodramatic third act) means completist fans of vampire fiction will have a fine time here, but if you only have time to read one vampire book this year- don't. Just watch "True Blood" on TV like everyone else.

Brian Lee O'Malley's "Scott Pilgrim: Precious Little Life" (1)

When Michael Cera is not blowing up moving vehicles or developing villainous facial hair,
he's playing the title character in Edgar Wright's "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World," a movie that's been sort of a tanker despite the considerable amount of nerd-critic love thrown its way.



It's no fun for me to reflect that the Scott Pilgrim phenomenon has been around for about 6 years, when Brian Lee O'Malley's series took off with "Precious Little Life." That means that the 17 year old emoist who discovered it then is now in his early 20s, and the 24 year old that's the book's real target is now 30 and recalls Scott Pilgrim as a friend of happier days.
Scott Pilgrim is ALREADY about nostalgia.
Pilgrim is 23, and in budding Woody Allen mode he's dating a high schooler called Knives Chau because I'm guessing the statutory rape laws are refreshingly relaxed in Canada. (Field trip up north, everyone!) He's also Rated: Awesome, fronts a band called SEX-BOB-OMB, and has a wide circle of mildly-disapproving friends. This all changes when the mysterious Ramona Flowers skates into his dreams, (literally: she uses his head as an inter-dimensional highway so that she can run deliveries for Amazon.com's Canadian branch. Don't ask further.) Soon, Scott is sharing the awkward banter of first love with Ramona, who is somewhat more legal than Chau (although everyone here is designed to look like they're rocking the kindergarten). Then reality goes unhinged and our awesome little man must fight Ramona's seven evil-ex-boyfriends, basically a cross between "Dragonball Z" and "Nick and Norah's Playlist."



Owing much to Craig Thompson's "Blankets," wide-eyed anime, and Jamie Hewlett's work (in a much cutified version), "Precious Little Life" is crammed with "you will relate" references: if you've ever been to a punk show, or if you ever saw "Trainspotting," or if you know who the X-Men are, or if you know what a Dragonball is, or if you've played Super Mario Bros 3, if you ever ran into an ex at a club, hell, if you've ever shopped on Amazon.com, you WILL relate because O'Malley just really REALLY wants you to like his comic.
It's a cheap cheap way to make you care, and it works best in impressionable young people ("You love the Beatles? OMG, *I* love the Beatles too!!!"), but it got under my defenses this one time. The Scott Pilgrim universe is HALLUCINA endorsed. In any case, if you're not willing to think like an impressionable young person anymore, then you probably won't care about someone's little rock band or their immature romance, and you're not going to read something with cute little CARTOONS in it anyway, because, fuck, you got important adult things to worry about, like, say, how your sciatica is messing up your golf swing.

The Rolling Stones' "Aftermath"

You know in the movies when there's a truck that's balanced on the edge of a cliff, half hanging over the abyss? That's what the Rolling Stones' "Aftermath" is kind of like: a truck, where the amazing front songs (the best they'd written up to this point) have such instant weight they keep the thing from falling into ordinariness. The truck's back end is loaded with the never-ending "Going Home," which is sort of what "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" might have been if "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" had been an ordinary jam-song. Other stuff in the second half runs to meh-ness: "High and Dry," "It's Not Easy," "Flight 505," which makes me think of the Beatles going for the one after 909. (Yeah, that song was released officially 3 years later, but what am I? A rock historian? It's the same spirit, and 909 trumps 505.) The track that exemplifies "Aftermath" is "I Am Waiting": half of it, (its verses), are uninspired, and half of it (its chorus) it's fantastic, which is disheartening because who enjoys songs that are only half-fantastic?



But that beginning! "Paint it, Black" with that commanding comma and Brian Jones outdoing George Harrison, sitar-wise; "Lady Jane" which is transporting thanks to its harpsichord sounds (or is it clavichord? Whatever!) even though Jagger's Elizabethan enunciation can't quite rhyme "Jane" with "Again" convincingly; "Under my Thumb," with its domineering, sexy quasi-calypso sounds; even "Mother's Little Helper" in some copies, a hilarious pill-popper's satire for myopic suburbanites (THEIR drugs are legally prescribed, see, that's why it's different). And I would love to hear Jagger sing: "What a drag it is to get old" these days.



Then there's "Stupid Girl," which must have seemed so mean at the time but the misogyny seems like an affectation. It will get worse as the records go on. Here it's hard to take it seriously when Jagger sneers at a girl's shallow interest in looks: it just sounds like he's insulting himself in the mirror. After all, a few minutes later in "Dontcha Bother Me," he's slamming someone else, (arguably copy-cat bands but, really, another GIRL) for for not being as fashionable and pretty as he finds himself to be: ("Still waiting here/ for a single idea/ in your clothes or your hair, I wore them last year.")
People who look for IDEAS in clothes or hair end up fittingly disappointed. To quote fashion legend Alexander McQueen: "At the end of the day, it's really only a bunch of clothes."
Same goes for "Aftermath" here. It's really only rock'n'roll.
But-
You know how I feel about it :-)

Miguel Arteta's "Youth in Revolt"

I've been there, Michael Cera. I know what it's like to be typecast as the befuddled, physically questionable, stammering nice guy who botches his references to Truffaut and Godard and Ozu.
There's an Ozu joke in Miguel Arteta's "Youth in Revolt" and I laughed outloud when it came, and my co-watchers turned to me:
"What the hell is an 'ozu'? What just happened on screen, Hans?"
Me: "Oh, well, see the joke is that Nicholas Twisp, the character played by Michael Cera, is trying to impress the beautiful Sheeni Saunders, (played by Portia Doubleday), so he brings up his knowledge of film and says his favorite is Kenji Mizogushi's 'Tokyo Story'! Hahahaha!"
Beat. Everyone stares at Hans.
"Hmmm, well, and, er, it's funny, because it means he's faking it and flustering through it! Everyone knows that despite Mizogushi's many directorial accomplishments, he did NOT direct 'Tokyo Story.' That's an Ozu film. Yasujiro Ozu?"
Blank stares.
"Great Japanese director? Well, see, it's even funnier, because after a moment of letting the Michael Cera character put his foot in his mouth, the girl generously contributes: "Isn't 'Tokyo Story' an Ozu movie?" which lets him know that he's met his intellectual match, if not superior! Hahahaha!"
More blank stares. Finally, someone says:
"Yeah, that's hilarious, Hans. You freakin' nerd."
So yes, Michael Cera: I know what it's like to be a good boy called Nicholas Twisp, when all along there's a cool, throbbing, don't give a f***k, car-exploding, alternate bad boy called Francois Dillinger inside us.


ABOVE: Bad boy and good boy. You can tell the bad boy by Michael Cera's faintly gay attempt at a mustache. This movie is about "the fracturing of self." I'm just going to say that about every movie from now on.

Anyway, so in a series of comedic, extremely loose and sometimes rather unpleasant adventures, Nick Twisp explores the bad boy alter ego within in order to really win Sheeni's heart. She likes him from the start, but kind of sees him like an adorable poodle, instead of the rabid Rottweiler apparently every REAL man wants to be in his bitch's eyes. His attempts at civic revolt get progressively crazier and make us more and more distanced from this character: Cera reacts to the situations by becoming more distant from his character himself, until he finally stands around looking dazed, like a roadie who's accidentally walked into a stage and been mistaken for an actual star by a cheering crowd- (which is pretty much Michael Cera's life, really.) Beyond even the joyful blowing up of things you see in the trailer, Twisp does something "for love" that I found deplorable, and could have resulted on Sheeni's death, and- he just becomes a completely irredeemable insane asshole.

Naturally, that's when she REALLY falls in love with him. If I took a lesson from "Youth in Revolt" it's this: a girl doesn't get into you until you've seduced her friends, drugged her, humiliated her, and ruined her life.
Oh, wait: that's actually the most realistic thing about this movie!
Bah, friggin bad boys.


ABOVE: He's not faking that smile. "If I wasn't inexplicably famous, this chick would be punching me SO HARD right about now. Thank you, Hollywood magic!"

CHAPTER 118: NICOLE, FLEEING

7:40- Nicole (Kirsten Dunst) runs to the gates of the Trianon, where her good, good friend Monsieur Beausire awaits.
7:30- Monsieur Beausire (Timothy Dalton), in his martial punctuality, arrives at the gates of the Trianon to find Nicole not there.
7:25- Andree de Taverney (Kiera Knightley) closes the blinds on the windows of her apartment, having decided to retire for the night.
7:20- Gilbert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is staring as usual in the direction of Andree's window from his own residence. There's love and hatred in his eyes, and a little bit of conjunctivitis too.
7:27- Gilbert growls as the blinds close, and looks around the palace grounds in time to see the cocky plume of Monsieur Beausire's hat as that gentlemen arrives at the gate.
7:40 again- Nicole makes some signs at Monsieur Beausire in mime mode.
7:41- Gilbert says: "Oohlala! it appears Nicole has some secret to share with that handsome young soldier!" Do not assume that Gilbert feels any traces of jealousy, or that he cares: he just figures Nicole is an enemy and any info he can sniff about her could come in handy- and the pretty waiting-maid's secretive meeting is such damning evidence that Gilbert, naturally, runs out of the building which contains his gardener's room and moving stealthily, obtains a pretty good spying position, hiding behind a stout tree by the garden gate where Nicole is meeting Beausire.

Gilbert wants to hear conversation, but instead catches something better: the unmistakable sound of gold hitting a stone- quite different from silver hitting a stone- and he peers from his hiding place to see how Nicole is pouring the gold coins that Richelieu gave her onto a rock, while, from the other side of the gate that separates them, Monsieur Beausire follows the money with agitated, cash-signs-on-the-eyes cupidity.
NICOLE: "You've said before we should elope, haven't you, Beausire?
BEAUSIRE: "And get married!"
N: "I'm more interested in the eloping part right now. Can it be done in two hours?"
B: "I don't understand, this is all so sudden!"
N: "Here's fifty louis for a carriage."
B: "I'm running to the carriage store! Be back in a jiffy!"
N: "No, I need two hours. There's something I have to do first."
B: "But can you at least explain what this is about? Where did the money come from?"
N: "Do you want to elope or do you want to flap your gums, Beausire? Go get the carriage!"
B: "I am soooo turned on right now."

Gilbert tries hard to put all this together from his spying spot, and questions surround his head: Why is Nicole eloping all of a sudden? Where did her money come from? What is it that Nicole has to do that keeps her from running away at once? Why is Beausire so dumb?

8:30- The night closes in on our characters, friends and foes alike, a gloomy shroud of a night. In her apartments, Andree moves with a sluggish, anticipating sadness, while Nicole impatiently waits for her mistress to get on with it and slap the hay around a little.
N: "Mademoiselle's eyes look so puffy! Perhaps it's time to repose?"
ANDREE: "You think so?"
N: "Yes, yes, let me undress you right this moment- not in the sexy, interesting way but in the dutiful, boring way in which a servant undresses a lazy rich girl who's wearing clothes that are too outrageously intricate for any one person to handle."
Andree sighs: "I do feel tired. And there's much to do tomorrow." While Nicole helps her loosen her hair and remove some layers of clothing, Andree enumerates the next day's list of things to do, which involves getting books for Philip from the Versailles library and tuning her harpsichord or clavichord or whatever it is.
A momentary guilty pang touches Nicole's bosom: her life and Andree's have been linked for so many years, that knowing about the upcoming betrayal fills her with sadness. But then she remembers the money Richelieu has given her and how Andree has always lorded it over her, and she's all like: "Whatever Richelieu has planned, she had it coming! All I'm doing is leaving the door to her room open, it's NOT such a big deal!"
And then a little time-piece hits

9:00- and a shivering Nicole places two drops of Richelieu's potion in a glass of water, adds some sugar, stirs the glass with a spoon, and loses all her chances at going to Heaven as she presents Andree with the glass and says:
"Wouldn't it be nice to drink a little sugary water before bed? Yawn, I'm soooo sleepy too! Can I go to bed? And leave you drink this yummy, yummy water?"
Andree dismisses her limply, and eyes the glass of water that Nicole places on a night table.
The maid then runs out of the apartment, having left the front door unlocked and ajar exactly as Richelieu has required, and makes it to the gate again. This time Beausire is waiting for her with a carriage, and Nicole takes the key which opens the gate, puts it to good use, exits the palace grounds, closes the door behind her, and throws the key to the grass.
Only Gilbert, whose eyes have followed Nicole's progress all this time, marks the spot where the key falls, and hears the horse-driven carriage wheel away into the distance.
Gilbert only knows Andree has been left alone by a fleeing Nicole, and that in her solitude something is calling out to him, some impulse he can not control.
So he runs toward the apartment where Andree is about to drink a glass of drugged water.

Love the Way You "Lie to Me" Season 1

I can not write a lie: I kind of like that Eminem video with Rihanna, Megan Fox, and Chaaaaaarlie from "Lost". I'm talking multiple repeats, fists violently pumped in the air, and a terrible Eminem impersonation that, should anyone witness it, would end up on YouTube's embarrasing hilariousness list.





It's a bad video, mind you, and I don't just mean the wife-burning (Eminem is wonderful at glamourizing passionate murder, up there with, oh, Nick Cave or Johnny Cash), or Megan Fox's "acting" (out of the trailer park production of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"), or the execrable lines like "Now you get to watch her going out the window/Guess that's why they call it window PANE!" (damn, Em, been hitting "100 Punny Jokes for Children" for material?)- or even the opportunistic Rihanna chorus. It's ALL that, and the addition of Joseph Kahn's cliche-heavy direction: all we needed was a sudden burst of rain over the fire and Eminem fighting against the wet winds that blows, contrary, on his face.
Still. I can't lie. It gets past my defenses with the hysterical-crescendo rapping. Most rapping tends to stick to the groove in some sort of emotional plateau, but in Eminem's epics he gets progressively crazier per stanza, and although he's lame and palatable now (again, despite the metaphorical wife-burning), I don't know... I kind of like it.

There, Cal Lightman? Am I lying? Am I pulling my ear or emitting all sorts of "micro-expressions" or blinking too much or too little, not using "manipulators" enough? You tell me.



"Lie to Me" is a very good procedural show, with a quirky enough premise that goes beyond: "Well, it's CSI meets Law Order. Just another city, see?" (Anyone excited about "Law and Order: L.A."?) Cal Lightman (Tim Roth), a living polygraph, heads a group of investigators: Gillian Foster (Kelli Williams, from "The Practice") whose husband may, or may not, be cheating on her; Eli Locker (Brendan Hines) as the nerdy-cute guy audiences should relate to; and Ria Torres (Monica Raymund), the girl who kept me half the season wondering if her name was supposed to be Maria or Rita and the white folks just weren't getting the pronounciation right. (See, this is why captions are important!)
They get hired by third parties to basically walk up to the suspects and ask if they're guilty, then stare at them and intently, and say: "They didn't do it... But they're lying about SOMETHING." This reduces the complexity of the mysteries, but one gets so many useful tips about the lying sacks of humanity all around that I can't help but be grateful.
Like, for instance, try this:

Ask yourself outloud right now: "What's my name?"








There's a 70% chance that your eyebrows went up as you did that- it's what tends to happen when you ask a question that you already know the answer to.
Neat, right?!?
Thank you, "Lie to Me"!


ABOVE: "The raised, questioning gesture is a sure sign that my armpits are really smelly right now. God! Deo, stat!"

3-EP: BONUS TRACK. "Thank You, Irene."

THANK YOU, IRENE



I've been beaten four times
But just once by the woman
(She is always the woman)
She's a New Jersey vandal
She's a Bohemian scandal
A Milan primadonna
Stunning, Makes you wanna
Say

Thank you, Irene
For the mystery seen
For the puzzle insoluble
That makes me feel gullible

And all the scarlet hounds
Gather 'round
The missing dress
Her disguise that was such a mess
She's a well known adventuress

Thank you, Irene
For the mystery seen
For the puzzle insoluble
That makes me feel gullible

Oh, woman of questionable memory
Sets the great man once again stammering
"221B or not 221B
Out on Baker Street
Boys from the Yard at her feet."

LINER NOTES:
Alvis Rockett (lead singer, guitar): So 3-EP hadn't really played together for a few months, because I got this gig as roadie for a Phish cover band called Skales *sigh* because scales cover a fish. Yeah, I always have to explain that, nobody gets it. But that didn't last long and Matt and I got together for this one song, which is kind of like a love ballad about a girl named Irene.

Matthew Porfirio (main lyricist, bass, bagpipes): 3-EP hadn't gotten together in a while. I resist the idea of writer's block, and instead I use poetry and literature as an inspiration. I thought "Thank You, Irene" was clear enough, but for the record: It's about the fictional character Irene Adler from the Sherlock Holmes stories. She was an adventuress who bested Holmes intellectually- and every line is some sort of Arthur Conan Doyle reference. No, it is NOT about any actual girl, and it's not about you, Betty, so no need to sue or try to claim royalties or whatever insane idea your new lawyer boyfriend's put in your head. OH, you didn't think I knew about your relationship status change, did you? Well, all I have to say is: hacking Facebook is much easier than they want you to think.

Helen Sandborg (drummer, real estate warmer): I hadn't even seen the guys for ages, until they called me for this Bonus Track. I've been working as a real estate warmer, which is cool, it's like, when houses are in the process of being sold, I stay in them so that they don't feel empty.
Ok, I just break into empty houses and stay until I get found out.
Oh God please we need to get a record deal soon.

"Futurama" Volume 2- and Evil Santa Clauses

"I was all of history's great acting robots: Acting Unit 0.8, Thespo-mat, David Duchovny!"
-Calculon, "The Honking"

Mulder's been zinged!



It's somewhat complicated because I'm taking straight off from Volume 1 of "Futurama," and it confusingly includes Season 1 and some Season 2, while Volume 2 includes most of Season 2 and a couple of eps from Season 3, which means a robot at the Fox DVD factory didn't have the required amount of alcohol.



ABOVE: Close, but no cigar.

Bender gets to feel emotions- even if he technically swipes them from Leela! Zap Brannigan gets the "Midnight Cowboy" treatment! Nixon's head runs for the presidency again! Santa Claus is coming to (annihilate everyone in the) town*! Zoidberg's bursting with male jelly! Bender meets not-as-evil twin Flexo! Amy gets some head: Fry's! We meet Gender Bender! "Married with Children" makes a cameo! We (yuck) get a bratty, Barty, unwanted cast addition with young Hubert Farnsworth! Hermes requisitions his groove back! We realize that there's something going on down South in the Lost City of Atlanta! Bender joins the Mafia and smuggles Zuban cigars (best in the galaxy)! Professor Farnsworth gets in on with Mom! Popplers are a little too popular! The "Anthology of Interest" is just like "The Simpson's Treehouse of Horror"! A bomb will go off if Bender says his favorite shiny metal word! And we end with a spoof of "Christine," "The Howling," "The Wolfman," and "The House on Haunted Hill"- just like "The Simpson's Treehouse of Horror" too!

That about covers Volume 2.

*EVIL SANTA CLAUSES!!!



*"Now Santa Claus comes forward, there's a razor in his mitt."
Leonard Cohen- "Dress Rehearsal Rag."

Dawn: Um, guys, hello, puberty? Sort of figured out the whole no-Santa thing.
Anya: That's a myth.
Dawn: Yeah!
Anya: No, I mean, it's a myth that 'it's a myth.' There IS a Santa Claus.
Tara: There's a Santa Claus?!?
Anya: Mm-hmm. Been around since, like, the 1500s. But he wasn't always called Santa. But, with Christmas night, flying reindeer, coming down the chimney, all true.
Dawn: All true?
Anya: Well, he doesn't traditionally bring presents so much as, you know, disembowel children. But otherwise...
Tara: The reindeer part was nice.
-Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 5, Episode 16, "The Body"

Case of the Mondays?

Dear Imaginary Reader:
A wonderful friend of mine is producing an indie web series about relationships called "Mondays" which you should check out now, and make it "Funny," because you can't let the big-shot Will Ferrells of the world boggart the votes.

Mondays The Web Series - Episode 1 - watch more funny videos

Coincidentally, I will plug practically anybody's project in exchange for kind words and/or a hot soup from Subway.

Two Little Weird Ladies- Joanna/Janelle

Nobody calls me "darling" as enticingly as Joanna Newsom.



She really makes me want to lie down beside her and gently pluck her harp while transmutated sheep frolic about in her Civil War gardens of pleasure. (Or whatever the hell she's talking about in her three-pack of lunatic poesy, "Have One on Me.")
It wouldn't work out, guilt would overcome me. She's pretty much some sort of mentally frail child, isn't she? I don't know how Andy Samberg does her. It, I mean. Check out "'81" on the Jools Holland show.



And nobody wears a poodle haircut in the same adorable fashion as Janelle Monae.



"The Archandroid" is some schizo blend of Jackson 5 joy, Bowie's futurism, Diana Ross emotion, and, I dunno, throw in Madonna, Erykah Badu, Gwen Stefani, Outkast, Cee-lo, Lady Gaga and a vinyl shelf's worth of inventiveness in there. Without a doubt, one of the most surprising, diverse listens of the year. Check out "Tightrope" on the David Letterman show.

"24" Season 1

Barack Obama owes at least 40% of his presidency to the first season of "24" and Dennis Haysbert's "first African American president," David Palmer, a monolith of integrity that would have made a blushing Jesus say: "Ease up, dude, no one's supposed to be THAT good." No, forget "monolith," that suggests depth and dimension: he's more like a plank of unalterable integrity.



Luckily there's Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), who's not above shooting co-workers in the leg to find out who's been taking the Twinkies from the common fridge; and there's Teri Bauer and Kim Bauer, (Elisha Cuthbert), whose shared genetic idiocy makes them unable to take two steps without tripping into a trap; there's Nina Myers, (Sarah Clarke) who you never trust even when we're told she's to be trusted, (SPECIALLY NOT when we're told she's to be trusted); and there's the President's wife, (Penny Johnson Jerald), the shrill, powerful "I did this for our family!" Hillary-Clinton-type, which apparently is far more threatening to male politicians than multiple assassination attempts.

"24" was never exactly a "good" show. It was a protracted action soap opera that spoke to our time's technological anxieties (at least 20 minutes of every 44 minute episode are spent on cellphone convos or in front of a blinking monitor). The writing was not memorable; all efforts went to crafting the storylines in a manageable "real time" way. Was it ever convincing? No. It takes most people ten minutes just to put on their socks in the morning, but it was all Jack Bauer needed to drive from L.A. to San Francisco, with two interrogation stops. Still, it comes with a certain level of nostalgia for me (who watched all of the first season, most of the second, none of the third, some of the fourth, most of the 5th, and find it hard to believe that it's been almost a decade since that alarm clock BEEP- BEEP- BEEP started annoying me.)
On to Season 2! What crazy kidnapping will Kim run into?

Carolyn Parkhurst's "Lost and Found"

Carolyn Parkhurst's first novel, "The Dogs of Babel," came in with a howling hype that suggested it was the next "The Lovely Bones," at a time in which writing the next "Lovely Bones" was what any starving writer needed to assuage a violent landlord. What the novels had in common was that they dealt with death and loss through imaginative gimmicks, ( the victim's angelical voice in Alice Sebold's novel; and talking, witnessing dogs in Parkhurst's).



"Lost and Found" has its gimmick too: it capitalizes on the reality show fad (I shouldn't call it a fad since it's been going on for a decade and we show no signs of recuperating from "reality.") Clearly modeled on "The Amazing Race," (TOO clearly) "Lost and Found" is a TV-show-within-a-book. We follow teams of characters as they travel the world from (unimportant) clue to (uninteresting) clue. What matters is the secrets that the characters hold: namely that, like, half the cast of the show is gay. There's the young lesbian, Cassie, with her mother, Laura. There's the part-time lesbian and child star Juliet, with fellow child star Dallas. There's the recovering born-again lesbian Abby and her recovering, born-again gay-as-the-4th-of-july-in-Key-West husband, Justin. Parkhurst is good at exploring the psyche of these characters and the absurd lies they need to hold on to, but a real chance is lost here at creating a thrilling satire of reality TV shows. You'll probably find the actual "Amazing Race" far more revealing. This is "Amazing Race" fan fiction, its characters there to prove rather shallow points: namely, "it's ok to be gay" and "those reality TV shows are all fake, but oooh such guilty fun!" The book lacks what "Dogs of Babel" had plenty of: Bite.

Take Your Canon and Shove It

Dear Imaginary Reader:
You and I know that sometime around the year 2000, three agents from the so-called A.V. Club cannily planted a chip under my dorsal fin that allowed them to track my trend-setting likes and dislikes. It's Karma Chameleon Hour, mofos, and here I rip THEM off by going down their list of "50 Best Movies of the '00s". That's right, Nathan Rabin, Tasha Robinson, that other fat guy; Payback is NOT a Lady.

50- OLDBOY. If "The Count of Montecristo" had been Asian, these would have been the results.
49- GERRY. Never saw it. Not a big Gus Van Sant fan, mainly it's the "Van" thing that turns me off. Such a pretentious name. What is he, a furriner?
48- CRIMSON GOLD. Never saw it. Ah, Iranian movies. Better than Iraqi movies, worse than Palestinian movies.
47- MOULIN ROUGE! A guilty pleasure. It's a terrible, melodramatic experience even by musical standards, but it's so ridiculously hyper it doesn't give you time to hate it.
46- ADAPTATION. This was all idea, very little movie.
45- AUDITION. I am a grown up. I don't get SCARED by some little Asian girl... OMG what IS SHE DOING TO THAT GUY'S LEGS??? OH GOD PLEASE DADDY MAKE HER STOPPPPPPPP!!! *hugs knees and cradles self in corner of room*



44- 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS. Maybe it takes someone from a Communist country to really get this great, excruciating Romanian movie. I really got it.
43- BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. Once you separate it from its cultural significance, it's just a small, well-acted movie, isn't it? Nothing to get all bent about.
42- L'ENFANT. Ah, petty thugs and their little babies. Realistic but manipulative.
41- DARK KNIGHT. Possibly the darkest superhero movie ever? Certainly the best Batman movie, and not likely to be topped.
40- CITY OF GOD. Next time you think that people in Brazil are just happy in their Third World samba-dancing haze, watch this.
39- THE PRESTIGE. About 80% of this movie is excellent, then it has some plot twists that might have made M. Night Shyamalan groan and head for "The Last Airbender." It's clearly only in this list for the Christopher Nolan love. (Key bullshit line in the A.V. Club's blurb: "Like Memento and The Dark Knight (and Insomnia and Following, for that matter), The Prestige is partly about the fragmentation of self." Yeah. And "The Breakfast Club" and "The Karate Kid," too, for that matter. Isn't that the kind of crap one utters on the way to formulating an aggrandizing auteur theory? The similar "The Illusionist" is about as good, and sadly unloved.
38- SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER...AND SPRING. Never saw it. The Buddhist in me might have liked it, but the Buddhist in me is too lazy to go see a movie with that soporific of a title. Next lifetime.
37- A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE. Judging by how much critics liked this movie, I get the feeling I missed out on something. I mean, it was a cool, intelligent action flick in my eyes, but clearly other people were seeing something waaaaaaay more significant, and not one of them has been able to explain what that is.
36- PAN'S LABYRINTH. How come this movie knew how to make its fantasy monsters come to life, while its real-life monsters were so one-dimensional? Where's Hans Landa when you need him?



35- WAKING LIFE. I ADORE this movie. One of the most daring trips in cinema.
34- AMERICAN PSYCHO. What's good here is Christian Bale, and the classic Phil Collins/ Genesis speech. What's bad is that the character of this American Psycho is looking for a movie to accomodate it.
33- PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE. Adam Sandler's "serious" turns are always cause for someone to go all like: "Look, he's a REAL actor, he's not funny this time!" Oh, he was funny the other times? I hadn't noticed. Very good movie, though. See the underrated "Spanglish" as well. And the parts of "Funny People" that worked.
32- A.I. I love sooo many aspects of this film- (and no, they're not all necessarily Kubrick's touches)- but rarely has a movie so likable made me go like: "Please end already. Please. You're ruining things."
31- IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE. Wong Kar-wai's movie is seductive, but I could never relate to its character's rigid avoidal of what even the densest audience member knows they should do.
30- WALL-E. Pixar should take 10 spots in this list.
29- CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. A ridiculous story to which stodgy critics clung to because they're not used to admitting that a movie can be awesome solely because it's characters can run bamboo blades into the sky.
28- MORVERN CALLAR. Never saw it. Never heard of it before now.
27- WHAT TIME IS IT THERE? Never saw it. Never heard of it before now either.
26- THE INCREDIBLES. This is not one of my favorite Pixar movies- the stress on the action scenes seems to pander to the conventions it would otherwise mock- but with Pixar, merely ok is still pretty great (see also: CARS.)



25- TOGETHER. I am thrilled this movie made it so high on the list. Let me quote the blurb in the site because it mirrors my thoughts exactly:
Swedish writer-director Lukas Moodysson has become disappointingly didactic over the past few years, but he used to be capable of warm, humanistic films like the shambling comedy 'Together,' in which varying countercultural types convene in a commune in 1975 and spend more time debating the nature of their social experiment than they do actually living their principles. Moodysson divides his attention between the bickering grown-ups and the impact their life of rigid idealism has on their kids, who dream of toy guns and hot sausages. Nobody is too good or too bad in 'Together'; they’re all just muddling through, the same as anyone. At a time when we seem increasingly divided by our beliefs, it’s useful to be reminded that no matter how much people posture in public, in private we all have something in common: we’re all compromised.
24- YIYI. See "Spring Summer whatever whatever."
23- THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE. Never saw it. But it's a Coen Brothers movie: I sort of know what awaits there.
22- UNITED 93. Never saw it. It seemed like 'too soon' at the time, not it's 'too late.'
21- ZODIAC. See "A History of Violence."
20- THE SQUID AND THE WHALE. An all too real tale of divorce and its collateral damage.
19- THE LORD OF THE RINGS. The Star Wars trilogy of our time.
18- MULHOLLAND DRIVE. Great as (much) of this movie is, let's face it: what we all enjoyed was TALKING about "Mulholland Drive" and hoping one of us could explain it to the rest.
17- THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS. I prefer "The Life Aquatic," believe it or not.
16- ALMOST FAMOUS. I'm thrilled this made it so high: aside from some third act problems, this movie may be the reason why I joined the Rolling Stone staff and ended up partying with that guy from Disturbed. Or was it Stained?(Listen, rock and roll ain't what it used to be.)



15- Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN. This one was very instrumental in my exploration of Latin cinema, along with "Amores Perros". Thank you, Gael Garcia Bernal.
14- TALK TO HER. I would have put "All About my Mother" in this list instead, but Almodovar is at his peak here, showing sympathy for characters other filmmakers would have recoiled from or vilified.
13- GRIZZLY BEAR. A great documentary with a valuable moral: you do not fuck with Mother nature. (See Steve Irwin).
12- BEFORE SUNSET. I've always said that nothing is as exciting as a man and a woman in conversation.
11- TIME OUT. Never saw it, but I enjoyed both "The Class" and "Human Resources," so it's a matter of time. Sneaky, elusive time.
10- CHILDREN OF MEN. A smart premise, but it's the masterful, immersive action scenes that made this one memorable.
9- THE NEW WORLD. This movie captures the awe of encounter- not so much between men of different races, but between men and the nature that dwarfs them. (See also "Apocalypto," a great movie that no one defends because, well, it's Mel Gibson and he's a looney.)
8- CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS. One of last decade's most thought-provoking documentaries. (See also "Bowling for Columbine," "Crazy Love.")
7- KILL BILL. Tarantino is THE best at matching action with conversation, so that the cool fights you see are always grounded on someone saying something interesting.
6-SPIRITED AWAY. Yay, Miyazaki made the list, and quite high on it.
5- MEMENTO. I don't know that Nolan deserved three spots on this list. "The Prestige" oughta go.
4- NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Javier Bardem made this one-
3- THERE WILL BE BLOOD.- and Daniel-Day Lewis made this one.
2- 25t HOUR- Edward Norton, (screaming into the mirror about New York and, really, America.) It's all there on that scene.
1- ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. When I first saw ESOTSM at the movies, a friend said: "I don't get this." I don't think I still talk to that person, and that's for the best.

Sight UnSCENE! August 16 Brief All Verdict Version

"Eat Pray Love"- VERDICT: Eat Pray Love Vomit.
"Salt"- VERDICT: Angelina Jolie was in a good movie at one point, right?
"Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World"- VERDICT: The world wins, (but it does it by cheating).
"The Expendables"- VERDICT: No Van Damme? What's the point then?
"Inception"- VERDICT: OMG what if, like, everything was a dream dreamed by a butterfly that ate some really bad hot dogs? Then no one would mind if I ripped off Philip K. Dick's ideas!


ABOVE: Just do us all a favor and go for it already, Angie.

"Justified" Season 1

Women and country are on U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens' mind. The women are his ex-wife Winona and once gilfriend Ava. The country is Kentucky, the proverbial "home you can't go back to." Or, you CAN go back, but folks are likely to give you a double-barrel greeting.


ABOVE: Modern cowboy love.

After drawing too much heat for killing a drug dealer in Miami, Raylan gets more or less demoted from Sunshine to Bluegrass. "Justified" is an old-fashioned/modern day Western, (well, Kentucky is sort of in the Mid-East, and technically a Southern state, so this is a "Southern"). Still, all the tropes of a horse opera are paraded, (minus the horse): Mexican stand-offs and fast draw competitions abound; tough prairie damsels swoon in our Marshals' arm, just so they can steal the gun from his holster; there's always some awkwardness at a saloon when our hero walks in and the local brawlers stiffen and the bartender is all like: "Now, Otis, I don't want no trouble in here!"
What elevates "Justified" and makes it such a treat is the Elmore-Leonard-inspired writing. Nobody writes dialogue like Elmore Leonard: every clean line of his packs a wallop of character, and "Justified" has plenty of that in the form of Raylan (Timothy Olyphant, from "Deadwood" and a guilty fave of mine, "The Girl Next Door"). Olyphant is no one's idea of a tough at first sight, but he's very good at conveying potential menace behind geniality. Olyphant is surrounded by a nice but mostly unrealized supporting cast of deputies (only Nick Searcy stands out as Chief Deputy Art Mullen- you'll know him 'cause he has played some sheriff or other in practically every crime show ever).
It's Raylan's two delightful opponents in the Daltonesque Crowder family that get the great lines: M.C. Gainey (from "Lost") as the impossing patriarch Bo Crowder, and Walton Goggins (from "The Shield") as the born-again (maybe) Boyd Crowder.


ABOVE: When I grow up I want to be an awesome fat redneck just like Bo Crowder.

Raylan must contend with these kooks and the noxious Klan rallies and meth labs that somehow hang so heavy from the Bible Belt. I find it refreshing to see a show that clearly loves the South, doesn't condescend to it, and yet doesn't mind giving it the improving shot-in-the-ass it's begging for.


ABOVE: "God and Guns, you say, Lynyrd Skynyrd? Well, I dunno about the former, but I got the latter loaded."

Niels Arden Oplev's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

Another day, another girl.



I hate to indulge in this kind of cliches, but the book was better than the movie. As an early adopter of Stieg Larsson mania, I'm already well into backlash/"this-is-so-over-hyped" territory, and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" fails for me principally in that the character of Lisbeth Salander is way cooler in my head than in Niels Arden Oplev's projection. Noomi Rapace doesn't quite compare to what I pictured (quite frankly, she's not as cute, is sometimes too tough, sometimes not tough enough, I dunno; Lisbeth Salander is such an outsize memorable chick, and she would kick my ass for calling her a chick!). Michael Nyqvist, who played the father in Lukas Moodysson's "Together," is quite good as Mikael "Kalle" Blomqvist, and the movie does manage to streamline and visualize Larsson's unwieldy mystery: at least in that sense it improves upon the book. It's a very good screenplay, and I have no doubt it will make for a fine Hollywood adaptation. It's perfect material for David Fincher. (Too perfect?) The production advances like a Masterpiece Theater Mystery, or maybe a very good episode of "Without a Trace," but nothing beyond that.

The Uninformed Pundit #240: Mosque-Ow Does Not Believe in Tears

Dear Imaginary Tovarich-
That's what I'm going to have to call you pretty soon, if Boravich Engels Obama continues on this path to the United Soviet States of Lower Muslimia or whatever he's plotting. I knew when we elected a Communist that pretty soon he was going to start talking about "freedom of religion." Any time you have Communism, sure enough, freedom of religion waits right around the treacherous bend. Now the man is supporting the contruction of a Mosque (that's where terrorists go to fast before they explode themselves), and he's allowing them to built it RIGHT AROUND THE SEPTEMBER 11 SITE! This is in blatant opposition of the moral majority. America has spoken clearly, and we need to take a stand against Big Religion already! Go back to Leningrad, Muhammad!


ABOVE: This is a Mosque. You can see the bulbous dome, specially designed to hide giant warheads. It's right next to the giant rocket aimed at Capitalism.


It is a slap in the dead faces of the victims of September 11 to allow the terrorist ideal of tolerance to flourish right where they perished. I don't know about you, but it makes me sick to my stomach that these "religious people" would set up shop right over the graves of the brave firefighters who died defending the even braver Wall Street fat cats who worked in the World Trade Center. I DO know about you, actually, and I KNOW you agree with me. I've seen the polls.
It is insensitive and uncaring of these Islamabaddies to try to practice their religion in the open; they should go hide in catacombs, just like the Christians, or Gollum. No Mosque! Similarly, did you know there's a whole lot of Catholic churches in Jew York? It's insensitive and uncaring of Catholics to build their little palaces right in the face of all the descendants of the Jews they persecuted for hundreds of years. And don't get me started with the Jews and their SIN-agogues! How dare they practice right in front of Karim, the nice Palestinian hot dog vendor who gave me a discount on "Lion King" tickets last time I went to New York? I bet he gets a lump in his throat everytime he has to scalp tickets around a Hassidic "place of worship." Don't those Heebs have any compassion or decency? Socialists, the whole lot, wanting to give away money! And also greedy bankers, all of them, wanting to take away money! Look, don't point out the contradictions on my crude stereotypes, I'm just moving on to the Protestants with their little "temples"-
of TEMPtation!
Protestants are the WORST terrorists: THEY have killed Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Native Americans, Buddhists, Shintoists and OTHER kinds of Protestants, (just to be completists). Seriously, how these dudes show their face in public is beyond me. Burkas for everyone! I might say we should allow the Scientologists to keep their churches in our cities, but you've all seen those last few John Travolta movies: Scientologists have a LOT to answer for too.
If Obamarx has his Communist way, these religions will keep springing up in our cities, unchecked, allowing the meek to inherit and leaving almost no room for Burger Kings- we'll have to start calling them Burger CZARS!!!


ABOVE: "Pretty soon, my evil plan will be complete and all sorts of different religions will live side by side in peace and harmony! MWAHAHAHAHA!!!" (V. I. Lenin, in a letter to the Politburo dated October 16, 1924. yes, the letter said MWAHAHAHAHA!!! It was even underlined.)

This is what we need to do to honor Ground Zero: we plant a Mosque, a Synagogue, a Monastery, a Baptist Church, and the headquarters of Atheists United, ALL ON THE SAME BLOCK!!! Then we hand everyone AK-47s, (only thing the Commies got right!), place bets, and let God decide the outcome once and for all. (I know what you're thinking: "But, but...That's unfair to the Atheists!" Don't be so sure: God has a sense of humor.)
THEN, we take the last church standing and do with it exactly the same thing we do with strip clubs and other shady businesses: we put it far away in a polluted, warehouse-filled part of town where they can't offend anyone or get to impressionable children. Only then will this country get away from all this "Socialist, lovey-dovey, let's respect people of all religions" bull and back to the ORIGINAL creed of the Founding Fathers:
(you know: "there is no God but George Washington, Ben Franklin is his only prophet. Freemasons 4ever!")

Do svidaniya! конец!