"Rango" - Gore Verbinsky

And if French people can take over Westerns, why not lizards?



Gore Verbinsky, the merely reliable director of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, somehow manages to get better acting out of Johnny Depp than Tim Burton does these days. "Rango" is animated, with aggressively ugly designs, but that deliberate deviation from the likable Pixar standards makes it stand out among the competition. The plot is Hollywood gazing at its molting skin: does one's life make sense outside of a movie context? It doesn't, the answer seems to go, and "Rango" gives its titular lizard hero two movie traditions to live in. Half the movie is "Chinatown," with Ned Beatty doing a dead-on John Huston impersonation, (considering he's voicing an animated turtle, and also considering he voiced a similar villain in "Toy Story 3".) The other half pays homage to Sergio Leone's westerns. Coincidentally, Timothy Olyphant shows up to do a CGI impersonation of the Man with no Name: Clint Eastwood has sworn off acting, prematurely. He could kick ass into his 100's, as far as I'm concerned.

Here's corporate composer Hans Zimmer's "Rango Suite."

"Lucky Luke" - Morris and Rene Goscinny

I'm a poor, lonesome cowboy, I'm a long way from home...



If there can be Spaghetti Westerns and Sukiyaki Westerns, why not Baguette Westerns? Asterix is Rene Goscinny's most famous creation, but lonesome cowboy Lucky Luke is a close second. WEEELL, Lucky Luke is the creation of Belgian cartoonist Morris, but Goscinny wrote the best stories of a series that refuses to ride into the sunset: there are now 76 albums, (compare to the tiny Gaul's mere 34 albums). Only a fraction of those have been translated into English.



Accompanied by clever horse Jolly Jumper, Lucky Luke goes through most of the familiar Wild West scenarios, often chasing the hilarious Dalton Brothers or dealing with RinTinCan, the dumbest dog this side of Marmaduke. Real life celebrities pop up: Jesse James, Calamity Jane, Billy the Kid, Buffalo Bill, and the stories are far better researched than anyone should expect them to be. The series is not as gag packed as "Asterix" and Lucky Luke is generally too placid a figure to be a source of comedic chaos, but it's still unbelievable that he's not more popular in the very country through which he wanders.

Maybe it's the amiable un-PCness of the books? Maybe it's the self-rolled cigarette that perpetually dangles from Lucky Luke's lower lip? In the '80s, after decades of joyful incessant smoking, Morris let censorship win and put a straw in LL's orally-fixated mouth. Lucky Luke is now an exemplary health nut.

"Justified" Season 2 / "Eleven Eleven" - Dave Alvin

ABOVE: There are pictures of prettier people below.

I made Dave Alvin's acquaintance in a Season 2 episode of "Justified," rocking the sawdust right off a country bar. "Justified" is set in Harlan County, Kentucky, famous for the miner's strike documented in Barbara Koppel's Oscar-winning "Harlan County USA," and Alvin's recent album "Eleven Eleven" opens with "Harlan County Line." See the connection?

You can tell the territory Alvin travels: this is roots rock with a conscience, tales of people whose hard work was repaid with miner's lung, of common folks beat up by circumstances, of desperadoes boasting against their encroaching doom. Stompers like "Johnny Ace is Dead" and "Run, Conejo, Run" alternate with a "guilty woman" ballad like "Black Rose of Texas," or with the plaintive Texano cry of "No Llores Mija" (a song that dares to understand why a border-crossing drug dealer might do what he does.) There's also room for a genial blues work-out like "What's Up with Your Brother?" If you want to hear a grizzled troubadour righteously rock a saloon, "Eleven Eleven" is it.



You know what else is IT? "Justified" of course! The first season was fine, but it's season 2 that announces a show every bit as good as "Sons of Anarchy" and far more enjoyable than some overrated critical darlings I won't mention lest Marshal Raylan Givens go out and shoot their asses off the air. As Raylan, Timothy Olyphant is still the man. Although the unpredictable Boyd (Walton Goggins) is still giving him headaches, Raylan has put away most of the Crowder family, but now he's up against the similarly predatory Bennet clan. Can't keep the bad weeds from sprouting. I don't much follow awards shows, so I have no idea if Margo Martindale won an Emmy for her amazing performance as matriarch Mags Bennet. I think she did, and I KNOW she did IN MY HEAD, and if "Justified" had been a feature film, she would obviously deserve an Oscar as well.


ABOVE: Believe me, when this lady is getting a picture way above Rebecca Creskoff or Natalie Zea, it's because she's AWESOME.

Mags rules Harlan County, lovingly adopts a girl named Loretta (after murdering the girl's father) and keeps her three "boys" in line, sometimes by breaking their fingers with a hammer. Spare the hammer, spoil the hillbilly. (Of note: Jeremy Davies, from "Lost," as one of her sons. Davies always plays the same twitching weirdo but is so good at it I don't blame him.) Mags also goes up against the Black Pike mining corporation, which is bent on controversial mountain top removal procedures. (Also of note: Rebecca Creskoff as a steely corporation representative who is so hot I might have to check her out in that "Hung" show that no one I know has ever seen. Or at least won't admit to having seen.)


ABOVE: She can remove my mountain top anytime. I had a really hard (and enjoyable) time finding pictures of Rebecca where she wasn't naked, and that's how you know she's a fine actress.

With a rival like Mags, what's Raylan going to do? Mostly freak out while his ex Winona (Natalie Zea) tries for another divorce and, oh yeah, steals thousands of dollars from an evidence locker. In Season 1 Winona was there to remind us Raylan wasn't into any "Deliverance"-type deviation, but here she finally becomes a character worth caring about. Unfortunately this comes at the expense of the show's other pretty lady, Ava Crowder (Joelle Carter) who would be fully justified in shooting the writers for neglecting her entirely.

Ha! I said JUSTIFIED! See what I did there? It ties it all together! That's a little writing trick for youse all folks.



ABOVE: A visual representation of the differences between Winona and Ava when Season 2 plotlines were handed out.

LOSER DOG in: THE HOUSE OF SAND AND DOG!

26- The Crown Was Too Much by Jeanv999

27- Henrik Ibsen's "A Dog House" by Jeanv999

28- Love- O-Tomy!- By HC by Jeanv999

29- Why Would You Even ask That? - By HC by Jeanv999

30- Negotiating Tactics- By HC by Jeanv999

"Room" - Emma Donoghue

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Jack is 5 years old. (An incredibly intelligent, verbose 5 years old one second, an alien babbler the next.) He's lived in "Room" all his life- a prison he assumes is the entirety of Planet Earth. He shares Room with his mother, who has been there even longer than he has: for seven years she has been kept trapped, and repeatedly raped by a sadist she calls Old Nick.

It's an incredibly disturbing premise, a horror story really, but at some point Emma Donoghue decided she wasn't as interested as being in your nightmares as she was interested in being in your book club, so this is a story full of "love" and "hope" and "survival." A novel that could have been terrifying opts instead to be "inspiring." I realize this is a + for today's squeamish reader, but my interest all but died at the halfway point, when the horrifying situation is resolved and we're left to see how Jack copes with a BIG OLD WORLD. Once the Room opens, the Suspense runs right out through it. There's a reason why scary movies end when the bad guy gets killed. Who cares if Jack thinks the world is wacky? Well, social workers might, but I didn't. 5 year old kids cope really well anyway, and they spend lots of time trapped in their rooms: it's not like they need freedom to vacation through Europe. If we had seen more of his MOM'S side of the story, that I would have cared about, but her plight only comes to us through Jack's cutesy "I-dun-understan'-adults" voice. Most people will love "Room"; I thought it chickened out of even darker possibilities.

"Polytechnique" - Denis Villeneuve

In December 6 of 1989 a disturbed young man called Marc Lepine walked into Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique carrying a semi-automatic rifle. 20 minutes later he killed himself, after having murdered or wounded 28 people- mostly young women. A Canadian-Algerian immigrant whose misogynist writings made him out to be a sort of reverse Valerie Solanas, Lepine was bent on destroying the females who, he believed, had ruined his life with their unpleasant feminism.

Denis Villeneuve, (the director of "Incendies") dramatized the events of the Montreal Massacre, (Canada's own Columbine) in 2009's "Polytechnique." Starring Maxim Gaudette as an (unnamed) Lepine and Karine Vanasse (who I just saw starring in "Pan Am"!) as one of the survivors of the massacre, this is a tough one to watch. In many ways it's a slasher film as horrifying as any in recent years, except its villain is real, the evil it depicts undeniable. Villeneuve wisely abstains from insinuating that Lepine's actions are a natural extension of woman-hating rhetoric, but he also doesn't abstract the event from a reality in which women are still treated with suspicion when they announce they want to study aeronautics. It's not that the killer ranting against feminism and the employer denying a woman workplace opportunities are the same thing, but (the movie seems to say) they're not entirely unconnected either.

Like Gus Van Sant's kindred "Elephant," "Polytechnique" is more about achieving a certain "feel" than creating a documentary. Villeneuve shoots in black and white, not for any kind of anachronistic newsreel effect, but to convey a poetic austerity. It works: in color, this would be a gory action film. In black and white, it's an elegy. Ordinarily I hate that solemn approach, but if you're going to get elegiac about something, it might as well be about 14 innocent women being shot down.

"Transmetropolitan" - Warren Ellis - Volumes 9 and 10

There is an implied apology by Darick Robertson in the acknowledgments at the very end of "Transmetropolitan." He explains that he was giving the artwork all he could, even if it seems like he's given up. It DOES seem like he's given up: the quality significantly decreases and someone named Rodney Ramos apparently pitched in. By Robertson's admission, he finished some issues in as little as three days.

So if the previously detailed art suffered, and most of the gags are reiterations of previous imagery, what's to be said for the winding down of Spider Jerusalem? Neurologically doomed by an excess of journalistic dedication, Spider has to bring down President Callahan before the haze sets in. The problem, plot wise, is that Callahan is about as threatening as a bowel-disruptor set on "fart." He's like Major Quimby in "The Simpsons." Warren Ellis concludes everything like a decent gentleman should, but I was disappointed by how the HUGE intricate world of the future was neglected for a TINY "expose the horny politician" scandal. "Transmetropolitan" began by being about sooo much; why did it end by being about a silly Kennedy parody?

"Incendies" - Denis Villeneuve

Q: When will there be peace in the Middle East?
A: Hahahahahahaha!



Denis Villeneuve's "Incendies" is a GO WATCH NOW proposition, at least until a jarring contrivance takes us from "thoughtful political mystery" into "All My Children" territory, (seriously, Villeneuve might as well have had someone's evil twin fall down an elevator shaft. "OR WAS HE PUSHED?!?" *dum dum DUM*) An adaptation of a play by Wajdi Mouawad,"Incendies" is also theatrical in its coincidences and its inspirations: it is basically a Middle Eastern variation on "Oedipus Rex." Mostly set in an unnamed war-torn country which I could not identify and my general ignorance classifies as a "messed-up sandy place where Christians and Muslims are killing each other" (I think it's Lebanon?) the movie follows Canadian twins Jeanne and Simon (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin and Maxim Gaudette) as they try to fulfill the bizarre request made by her mother (Lubna Azabal) before her death: that they should travel to "messed-up sandy place where Christians and Muslims are killing each other" to look for a father and a brother they knew nothing about. As in "Oedipus Rex," the discoveries that await them are horrifying and, honestly, they should have just stayed home and given up on the quest. Ignorance is the happy healing band-aid on the cuts you didn't know you had. Don't people read Greek theater anymore? Sometimes, you're better off not knowing ALL about your mother.

Some Strange Music Draws Me In - Patti Smith - "Outside of Society"

For a while as a kid I was working under the unforgivable delusion that Patti Smith and Pat Benatar were the same person. "Because the Night," "We Belong to the Night," same thing, no? At some point pictures, usually of the androgynous Mapplethorpe variety, cured me, but it wasn't really until I got into "Horses" that I was like: "OOOHHHH, I see why this person matters." Still I never got a chance to go digging in her catalogue, so when I encountered "Outside of Society" I picked it up. It's that rare reminder of the late, oft-lamented music industry: A "greatest hits" record. Many a snob with disposable income used to sneer at those ("NO! You should buy all 25 releases of an artist you're not that familiar with, HELLO!") but for people with little money and a lot of catching up to do, nothing was better. Now that the "album" submissively gave in to the "playlist," for better or worse, it's obvious we were always waiting to break those 50 or 60 minute behemoths into "the parts we liked."

Greatest hits!

Here's "Dancing Barefoot."

"Conquistadora" - Esmeralda Santiago

It's probably a little Anglo-centric to describe Esmeralda Santiago's "Conquistadora" as "Gone with the Puertorican Wind," but that's what came to my mind and that's what will come to yours. Ana (a stubborn Spanish beauty from the 1800s who migrates to the tropics to become a plantation owner) is very O'Hara-ish. What else will come to mind? Isabel Allende's novels. Period novelas. Every historical epic ever. Every escapist platitude about "strong, independent women" that keeps romance-readers anesthetized through their lives of weak subservience to the patriarchy and/or their cats. (Damn, that sentence came out bitter.)

"Toda Mafalda" - Quino

Mafalda hates soup (for obvious reasons). She also hates political extremism and that sell out, James Bond. One of her '60s strips finds her staring at the world globe she nurses in a corner of her room, wishing the Pentagon and the Kremlin would just disappear and give peace a chance. She pauses. "Oh, and James Bond, he needs to go away too," she adds.

She loves that globe, but not without some reservations: what with war, crime, poverty and natural disasters, it can be almost as off-putting as soup sometimes. She loves the Beatles, even though she's not too sure about the lyrics, given that she's Argentinean and speaks only Spanish, (although all the billboards in her city seem to scream down at her in English). She likes her friends enough to tolerate them with their all-too-human insanities: Manolito with his incipient capitalist greed; gossipy Susanita with her conservative views; shy Felipe with his runaway imagination; Miguelito with his optimistic refusal to take reality into account.

Our heroine is 6, so she's free to ask all the really important questions her parents are too terrified to answer. One of the greatest comic strips of all time, "Mafalda" reads like Joaquin Salvador Lavado (Quino) took Charles Schulz' "Peanuts," shook it by the shoulders and said: "Alright, Charlie Brown, you're depressed, that's understandable, but have you READ the news? Let me give you a REASON for that depression!" Here's Schulz paying his respects to Quino: "The kind of ideas that he works with are some of the most difficult, and I am amazed at their variety and depth. Also, he knows how to draw, and to draw in a funny way. I think that he is a giant."

Schulz would know.

"Mafalda" is sweet and often bleak, hilarious and frequently sobering; it will make you feel embarrassed for "funny pages" that say nothing funny or important and are drawn by people who seem to actively hate the act of drawing.

Look at this:


(Reading in the Dictionary: "Democracy: A system of government in which people have the power.")
Beautifully drawn, smart, doesn't explain itself, and it delivers a bitter truth.

Now compare that to a random episode of Art and Chip Sansom's "The Born Loser":



Why is this strip intrinsically unfunny? That's right, because the "bad words" are CENSORED FROM THE BEGINNING, so when they are DOUBLY censored it makes NO FUCKING SENSE. This puppy was castrated before it even got a chance to sniff tail. But wait, it gets worse. If it hadn't been censored, it STILL wouldn't be funny, because how horrible could the cuss words have been coming from someone so lame his insults begin with "dirty, rotten"? What was censored? "Scoundrel"? But the biggest problem here is that it says NOTHING about censorship, or about echoes, or about the kind of anger that would make a character scream from the mountain tops: it's a strip that has no ideas to put forward, and didn't even have the decency to give you a cute drawing to distract your eye.

I know, I run a shitty comic strip so I shouldn't put flaming bags of poop in front of other people's glass houses, but HEY, I started doing mine the other day, and I'm trying to learn. "The Born Loser" has been around since the mid '60s, and this is not even the worst strip your syndicate carries, (that would be "The Lockhorns".) "The Born Loser" is simply representative of the mid-range: too dull to even provoke anger.

Anyway, back to a classic. Although you lose some delightful colloquialisms, the English translations of Mafalda are well done. Start here:



If you read Spanish, then there's little excuse not to own this:

"Parenthood" Seasons 1 and 2

ABOVE: (r to l) White people. Even the token ethnics look pretty, pretty white.

I'll say next to nothing about "Parenthood" (the Ron Howard-produced soap-bucket, not the 'hood) except that it is flattering: watching it makes me feel like I'm waaaay younger and cooler than these middle aged lame-oids caught in mostly imaginary white folk dramas. "Parenthood" is a sterilized dagger thrown at suburbia's bleeding hearts. It's a really cute show, though, and does earn its quota of about four or five "awwwws" per episode. When I'm older and my tragic dilemmas involve the right amount of quiches to give the new neighbors, I'll like this waaaay more. The writing is decent but never too sweaty, the cast stellar and committed, the stories generally reassuring and boring. (See also "Brothers and Sisters.") Lauren Graham, Peter Krause, Monica Potter, Dax Shephard, Craig T. Nelson and Bonnie Bedelia star. Also Erika Christensen. Ever since "Swimfan" I've had have a weakness for Ms. Christensen entirely unrelated to her method acting.


ABOVE: I'm sure you can see what I mean.

"Castle"- Seasons 2 and 3

Caught up with "Castle." Still a fun, harmless little show, but stuck to its formula like a dinosaur on a tar pit. Not a STRUGGLING dinosaur either. "Castle" finds it comfy to sink in its cliches, looking forward to the moment it hits the happy fossilized rock bottom of perpetual syndication. One watches for Nathan Fillion, who smirks at the plots right along with us, and for the inevitable moment in which a "perp" will stop Stana Katic and ask her how the hell she manages to keep her hair-style so damn fabulous and red-carpet-ready while supposedly sweating through police raids. I like to think that the hair may look all silky, but actually smells like corpse and gunpowder.

"A Visit From the Goon Squad' - Jennifer Egan

"Time is the Goon," writes Jennifer Egan in "A Visit from the Goon Squad," a book that, let me be a jerk upfront, it's pretty fun but not PULITZER good. It IS better than its competition, (Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom" which to be fair, I barely remember by now... but I feel like it sucked.)

Anyway, Time and Fashion and Ch-ch-changes are the subject matter of Egan's mosaic novel, (really a collection of vignettes doing a decent impersonation of novelistic aims.). We flit back and forth temporally (from golden years of punk to a legendary future) and in mode (from realism to satire to a Power-Point presentation that analyzes the timidity of the pause in "Young Americans"). We're also juggling a world-full of characters (from a shoplifting rebel rebel to a has-been rock star planning a rock and roll suicide.) So many people!

Sorry. Sorry. I'll stop. There's just so many David Bowie references in this book, that it's kind of bizarre that it wasn't until I was almost finished that I realized the TITLE is actually a Bowie reference, (we are the goon squad and we're coming to town. BEEP BEEP!) Anyway, I do recommend this book, and you'll feel for at least one of its many characters, (I particularly liked Sasha). But it's still a fizzler as you realize that Egan gave up on finding a satisfactory conclusion. Rarely have I felt more disappointed by a book's last chapter. It doesn't feel "ended" as much as "abandoned."

...

BEEP BEEP!

What'd You Say? Old Age

“Old age is like a fine wine: It should be kept in a cave, deep underground.”- Plato

“Yo mama’s so old that your dreams are about NOT having sex with her”- Sigmund Freud

“Age is a state of mind. And that state is ‘senile.’”- Methuselah

“What’s my age again? Should I still be doing this crap?”- The dude from Blink 182

"The Sicilian Girl" - Marco Amenta

Rita Atria grew up surrounded by Mafiosi- a side effect of being Sicilian- and her courageous, literally suicidal testimony before Italian courts was instrumental in bringing some seriously bad dudes to justice, so I wish I had enjoyed "The Sicilian Girl" more. A dramatization of the real life story that saw Atria take on the Mafia practically by herself (as a form of Vendetta, of course) 'The Sicilian Girl" has a really promising first act that sets up the criminal workings of a small town, only to sort of stall as Rita flees to the big city. The problem is, I confess, that I never really fell for Veronica D'Agostino's acting. Her Rita should convey righteousness, but she conveys petulance, like somehow the Mafia was just REALLY annoying her when she decided to turn State Witness. Italian viewers might feel- and probably DO feel- differently: this is a social document to those who are tired of the impunity with which the Cosa Nostra operates. But for me, this failed as a drama, despite the intrinsic power of the story: I just think I would have been much more worried about Rita's fate if she had been placed in the care of a better actress. To be fair, it's not just D'Agostino. With three marked exceptions (the father, the judge, the gangster), the acting in this movie is unimpressive. An important story that fails to be an important movie.

LOSER DOG, YOU JUST COME ON TOO STRONG

To Make You Feel My Love by Jeanv999

"Live and Let Die" - Guy Hamilton

Remember "Live and Let Die"? The Bond movie where a newly bonded Roger Moore travels to the exotic, deadly land of Harlem to encounter every possible "What's happening, honky" stereotype? And then he boats his way to the Louisiana swamps, where he encounters every possible "Boy, you done came to the wrong redneck parts" stereotype? The one where he deflowers Solitaire, (a Tarot-reading Jane Seymour)? The one with the PAUL MCCARTNEY SONG?




ABOVE: "Dr. Quinn is now ready to check your temperature. THE HARD WAY."

Here, in 1973, is where the character started sliding down from Sean Connery's martini dryness to the nonsense of Moore's era. Let's look at this exchange towards the end. Moore literally BLOWS UP the evil Mr. Big (Yaphet Kotto) by pumping him like a balloon, in one of the most ludicrous Bond scenes ever. (Really, he turns to rubber and is ripped apart or something. It's hilarious.) Jane Seymour, who wasn't paying attention, asks: "Where did Mr. Big go?" Moore replies: "He always did have an inflated sense of ego!" Huh? That "joke" isn't even a reply to her QUESTION. It's a nonsequitur he pulled it out of the magical capsule Q stuck up his ass. Other horrible but more reasonable puns would have been: "He BLEW this joint!" Or: "He got too BIG for his breeches... and had to SPLIT." But notice how Moore is just not LISTENING to the girl: he had a horrible line to deliver and is really satisfied with it, so he'll say it even if it doesn't fit the preceding line! She could have asked: "Would you like to have the obligatory sex now, Bond?" He STILL would have said: ""He always did have an inflated sense of ego!" You would know about that, buddy.

All the same the redneck sheriff in this one always cracks me up!




ABOVE: Her: "I can open my mouth this big, James! What do you think about that?" Him: "Oh no! Sean Connery has found us and he does not look happy! He always did have an inflated sense of ego!"

LOSER DOG, MEET YOUR NEW FRIENDS!

21- Sometimes You Need a Fresh Perspective by Jeanv999

22- EDGY, TASTELESS, SAME DIFFERENCE- By HC by Jeanv999

23- The Coming of Catty Cat by Jeanv999

24- Just So It's Clear - By HC by Jeanv999

25- Oh Jealousy by Jeanv999

"A Tale of Two Sisters" - Ji-Woon Kim

Here comes the Asian girl. You know her: she's either dead or sleepwalking, lumbering, her neck at an uncomfortable angle. Hair covers her much-too-blue face. Slowly, slowly, she walks toward you. Suddenly there's an electric screech and she's all up on your face! AAAGGGHHH!



By now there's a lot familiar about 2003's "A Tale of Two Sisters," Korea's first big entry into the above described trend in Asian horror. Ji-Woon Kim, (the director of "The Good, the Bad and the Weird" and "I Saw the Devil") got his start in this poetic K-Horror gem. The plot, about siblings dealing with an unnamed trauma, keeps you re-arranging your expectations, (this is one of those movies that works hard to earn a re-watch). The frights are few, but when they do come at you, you'll be all like: "AAAGGGHHHH creepy ghost, creepy ghost! Comb your hair and get less blue!"

"Futurama" Season 6

Being off the air for seven years would have been death for any TV show, but the arms of Bender Rodriguez lifted the sepulchral slab of cancellation and "Futurama" returned at exactly the same high level of quality it always had. I think this may be the smartest show on television- certainly it is the smartest animated show. (I don't see nobody in "The Cleveland Show" tackling the tough issue of robosexual marriage.)

"Worst Week of my Life" Series 1

Most of the jokes are telegraphed - "Oh, ok, now the family dog is going to eat the wedding ring, of course" - but "Worst Week of my Life" is a funny Britcom following luckless Howard (Ben Miller) as he attempts to marry Mel (Sarah Alexander from "Coupling") and win over her stodgy dad Dick and distraught mom Angela. (Angela has reason to be distraught- Howard has accidentally shoveled her beloved dog into a concrete mixer, see! Poor Binky!). In almost every aspect this is ripping-off "Meet the Parents" (the main actor is practically called Ben Stiller!) but if you can transport yourself to the carefree Year 2000 of our Lord, "Meet the Parents" WAS pretty funny.

What's Opera, Doc? It's not "Aria."

Ten great directors are given the task of creating a short film based on an operatic aria.

A masterpiece is guaranteed! Except about half of them are unable to keep on task, or misunderstand what an aria is, or fail to create a good short film. Most of these are failed MTV-era music videos, unsure of how music can be brought to the foreground. In fact, only John Hurt singing "Vesti La Giubba" gave me any sort of emotional opera response, and it's Julien Temple's Verdi-inspired comedy about modern marital switching (with Beverly D'Angelo!) that genuinely entertains. It may be the first cinematic reference to MDMA, back in 1987. But shorts by Godard, Altman, Ken Russell and Nicolas Roeg do remind us of the visual possibilities of opera. A failed, must-watch curiosity.

1000 VIEWS FOR LOSER DOG!

Whooo, so my strip just broke into the 1000 views realm at its home base. I got a badge and everything. It's just the beginning for Loser Dog. Soon to come, a DC crossover in which Loser Dog explores his sexuality with Krypto, Superman's dog.

1000 Views... Just the Beginning. by Jeanv999

"The Living Daylights" - John Glen

ABOVE: "My name is Cellov! 'Cellov Agurl'! No? Better than Kara Milovy!"

Remember "The Living Daylights"? The Bond movie in which 007 goes to Afghanistan to basically team up with a young Osama Bin Laden and help him in his struggle for democracy? The one with the A-Ha song? It's hard to tell which is the biggest miscalculation there.



No, wait, the biggest miscalculation is Maryam D'Abo as Kara Milovy, a defecting cello player. They might as well have made her a band nerd allergic to (but in love with) her cat. D'Abo is a pretty woman, sure, but she's the least va-vooomy Bond girl of all time. Combine no va-voom with no acting skills, and half of "The Living Daylights" sucks. Timothy Dalton, though? Underrated. Pierce Brosnan underrated. Do we have our Bond hierarchies straight, ladies and gentlemen?

1- Sean Connery




THEN

2- Pierce Brosnan
3-Timothy Dalton
4-Roger Moore
5-George Lazenby.

I'm sorry, but Daniel Craig is not James Bond. James Bond CARES that it's shaken, not stirred. Maybe after a third movie I'll change my mind.


ABOVE: "James! I want to thank you and the West for providing us with weapons and military training for our struggle against Communism! I promise this will have no further repercussions. Say, Bond, I hear there's some cool towers in New York, any way I can take a look at some structural maps?"

Too soon?!?

Arthur Phillips- "The Song is You"

Some songs find you when you're aching and need them the most. Or is it that you're aching, and almost any song will do? Julian Donahue, the ad creator in Arthur Phillip's "The Song is You," is an expert at finding songs that fit the right mood, umbilically tied to his iPod's soundtrack as an escape from his failed marriage. When he falls in love with Cait O'Dwyer, the lead singer of a newly-signed rock band, he's led on by her sound into a relationship in which flirtations are conducted through e-mail, webpages, and texts.

I heard someone say the other day: "People can't feel love anymore, all they do is text each other." I nodded in an old-foggy manner and then realized: "Wait, what, that's nonsense. Ever heard of a LETTER? Epistolaries? For centuries you rarely saw your lover, you just traded love letters until the carrier pigeons died on you. That was the sign of a GENTEEL romance! " Sexting is as old as Abelard and Heloise.



(Some novels find you when you're aching, too. "The Song is You" was the right one to read.)

"Thunderball" - Terence Young - (Spoiler: There is No Such Thing as a Ball of Thunder.)

ABOVE: Curse all French girls and their dominion over me!

Remember "Thunderball"? The Bond movie with the slow, chaotic underwater clash? With the Tom Jones theme song that accurately describes James as a sex offender? ("Any woman he wants, he'll get/ He'll break any heart without regret/ His days of asking are gone." Aaaah, the '60s. That's called "rape" now. Fucking liberals.)



But don't blame Bond, it's hard not to get a little harassy with Domino. Played by Claudine Auger, a former Miss France, Domino is easily one of the top five Bond damsels, and slightly better written than Ian Fleming's usual pleasure-bots. And HEY, SHE is the one who saves Bond at the end, so if you think about it, Domino is practically a feminist icon like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, you just have to look past the swimsuit.

Here's Sean Connery trying to look past the swimsuit:


ABOVE: Seriously, follow his line of vision.