Careful With That Blog, Eugene

Movie Review: Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

2009-11-22T00:41:00.000-05:00

Something that I noticed around halfway through director Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are, the adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic 1963 children's book that has, thus far, drawn only modest praise: There really aren't that many divorced children floating around in Hollywood movies. Growing up, I saw almost every movie that was marketed to young boys, and I'm scratching my head trying to come up with somebody who I and countless others would have had to relate to. It wouldn't be the kids from Mrs. Doubtfire or Liar Liar, because the focus is on the father. It wouldn't be the kids from Kramer vs. Kramer or Jerry McGuire, because a 8-15 year old probably isn't very interested in those kind of films, Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, and "Show me the money!" be damned. I think Clark "Mouth" Devereaux of The Goonies might be the product of divorce, which almost automatically would make him the hero of the bunch--brash, sarcastic, nothing gets to Mouth until he sees his money at the bottom of a wishing well--but I could very well be wrong.

Product of divorce. I remember this one time at church when a guest pastor spoke of the evils of the world: abortion, homosexuality, pre-marital sex, and divorce. He prayed for the "products of divorce," namely the children whose lives were presumably shattered by the separation of their parents. At breakfast, my mom told my sister and I that we were not the result of divorce, that we were not victims. I'm not a victim, but I think that a lot was determined by the path my mom and dad went down when I was three: If my parents were still together today or had gotten divorced later, I'd be an entirely different person, and, to tell the honest truth, I wouldn't want that. But looking back, I still wish there was a concrete example of a divorced kid who wasn't basically a prop for the older actors.

If this movie had come out 11 years ago, I believe I'd have found my hero in Max (Max Records), a young, imaginative kid who, in a fit of rage, runs away from home, finds a boat in a sewer canal, and sets sail for Parts Unknown. Max, like plenty of kids his age, is energetic, impulsive, and demanding, though not like the kids from Willy Wonka. He wants to play around. His older sister wants to hang out with older boys. He wants his mom (Catherine Keener) to pay attention to him, but she is entertaining a date in the living room. Getting used to the notion that you are not the center of the universe is a central aspect of growing up, especially when your mom works and wants a social life of her own. Until that sinks in though, there are outbursts. As a kid, I slammed doors, stomped on floors, chased my dog around, sulked in my room with the best of them, and "ran away" more than a few times to think about things, as I'm sure most kids do. I've never seen any of that reflected in movies though, which is why I was so enamored with Jonze's film.

Yes, enamored. I mean, the plot is thin and ambiguous at best, but there's a subtle charm there, too. The Wild Things, the island they live there, and the journey there and back again are the stuff of Max's dreams. Max is a 10-year-old boy directing a cast of six--is he supposed to know why the Wild Things are unhappy? And who wants to figure out that boring stuff when you can make yourself feel better by smashing through forests, throwing dirt clots, building tree forts, and running around like a lunatic? Max finds out that emotions can't simply be left behind, and that's what's really important.

Everything looks great, as should be expected. Jonze is one of those guys to whom the word "visionary" is often applied, and its easy to see why. The film is gorgeous and the Wild Things are cool, but, more than cool, they're there. Large-scale muppetry kind of had its last hurrah in 1999, when Yoda returned to the big screen before being digitized for the purpose of fan-servicing lightsaber battles, but here it's obvious that muppets aren't dead. Combined with CGI, the creatures here are far more realistic than most live-action movie monsters, and look far more realistic and pleasing than the plasticine abominations wandering around Robert Zemeckis' performance capture films. I probably don't need to mention the voice actors, who are all well-known and do great stuff, lending each character a unique personality to go along with their appearance. In a world where big name actors and actresses are hired to blandly portray the boring, sameish creatures in most kids fare, it's nice to see a group that works so well together as a unit.

Something really clicked for me in this movie, though I imagine there are and will be plenty who won't get it. I'll admit that my theory about why the plot is thin is only a theory at best and an excuse at worst, especially considering that screenwriter David Eggers' last film, Away We Go, also tended to cut out the connective tissue to get at the muscle behind the story. We never really know how much his parents divorce effects Max, why the Wild Things are unhappy, or what the purpose of those weird owl things are, and I'm sure those things will come back to bug me when this hits DVD and I see it again. For now, I'm content. This is a big step forward.

I Like Your Style, Dude

Movie Review: A Serious Man (2009)

2009-11-15T00:19:00.003-05:00

A Serious Man begins strangely, if you consider where it spends the majority of its run time. Sometime in the 1800's, a man comes home in the dead of night to his wife, who is busy cracking ice in a bucket. He bears strange news: On the way home, his cart broke, but a friend passed by and helped him fix it. He's on his way over for soup. What's strange about that? The friend has been dead for three years. He knocks on the door, sits down by the fire, and decides that he doesn't want soup afterall. This, according to the man's wife, is because the man sitting in the chair is a dybbuk, a kind of spirit that inhabits a dead person for whatever reason, here because of a family member's failure to sit shiva. The man apologizes for his wife, telling his guest that he's a rational man and doesn't believe in fairy tales, but eventually he comes to realize, and I won't tell you how, that his family's been cursed.

Flash forward 100 years, to a Minneapolis suburb that's almost blissfully unaware that there's a cultural revolution going on out there. Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), happily married and on the verge of securing tenure at a university where he teaches physics, is cursed. A student tries to bribe him over a failed test while setting out to blackmail him for accepting bribes. Anonymous letters are being sent to the tenure committee strongly urging that Larry be denied. Larry's brother is sleeping on the couch and is always in the bathroom. His son is more interested in Jefferson Airplane than Hebrew School. Oh, and his wife (Sari Lennick) wants to leave him for Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), an erudite fellow with a taste for wine and an unsettling remorse for Larry's loss.

Larry, as he is fond of telling everybody, hasn't done anything, so why is he cursed? It could be that he is descended from the two with the dybbuk problem, but the Cohens don't say. Don't count it out. After all, God told Abraham that the number of his descendants would rival the stars...without ever telling Abraham when to expect such a contract to be fulfilled. Or not--maybe the explanation is that there is no explanation, that fate has a way around reason, regardless of how reasonable men consider fairy tales.

After all, that's what the Book of Job is, right? Job's a nice guy, he's got wealth and a good family, honors God and all that. But Satan, who apparently gets to shoot the shit with God regardless of their longstanding feud, has a theory: Job is only pious because he's doing so well. So God gives Satan permission to destroy Job's life, and Satan gives Job the works. He loses his kids, his possessions, Satan afflicts him with boils, his friends come to visit and come to the conclusion that Job has done something to deserve all of this--they berate him so harshly that he curses the day he was born. Eventually God pays a visit and tells Job that it's a problem of perspective--Job can't understand why God allowed him to suffer, because Job hasn't seen the world through God's eyes, which is a rather mild way of telling somebody that you've allowed Satan to screw with you just because he had a hunch. However, Job gets a sweet reward for not cursing God: seven new sons, three new daughters (the most beautiful ones in the land), and double his original wealth.

Shame that nobody told Larry Gopnik what Job's lot in life was, post-smiting. As he is told at a family picnic, he's lucky that he's got thousands of years of tradition to draw upon, but the rabbis that he's referred to seem to miss the most obvious paralell--maybe because Larry isn't covered in boils. A junior rabbi tells Larry that he needs a fresh perspective, that he needs to look on things with wonder. But that's before he knows that Larry's wife is leaving for Sy Ableman. Still, "Consider the parking lot!" is his cry. Rabbi Marshak (Alan Mandell) tells Larry the story of a Jewish dentist who finds the words "Help me" in perfect Hebrew on the back of a gentile's teeth. The dentist, like Larry, frets over the meaning of his message. He asks Marshak, whose two word response puts him at ease. Not so with Larry, who demands an answer. He tries to meet with Rabbi Nachtner (George Wyner), but he rarely does pastoral work outside of speaking with the bar mitsvah boy and is perpetually busy thinking. Meanwhile, things continue to spiral out of control. His brother (Richard Kind) is a suspected gambler and might not be going to singles mixers after all. F-Troop is coming in fuzzy on the TV. One of his neighbors might be anti-semetic. The other sunbathes nude in her backyard and wonders if he's explored the freedoms of divorce. He owes the Columbia Record Club for Santana's Abraxas and, unless he acts quickly, will soon owe them for Credence Clearwater Revival's Cosmo's Factory. That's Larry's problem though--he can't act quickly. He can only watch as everything come crashing down around him.

I greatly admire the Coens, and after the veritable orgy of stars that appeared in Burn After Reading, they turn in a smaller, more focused film with no A-listers in sight. I really dug Burn After Reading, more than most people, I'd imagine, and if told that I could only watch 15 movies for the rest of my life, three of theirs would make the cut, with three or four more earning honorable mention. This movie is is so rich and multi-faceted, and while it might not kick Fargo, The Big Lebowski, or Barton Fink off of my island, it might be the one I'd try hardest to sneak past customs. If you don't live around one of the 262 theaters it's been released to, here's a tip: This is the sort of movie Netflix was invented for. A must see.

The Dude Abides

And this is just awesome...

2009-11-07T19:45:00.000-05:00

Is it just me, or is it somewhat ironic that Robocop starred in so many commercials?

2009-11-07T01:10:00.002-05:00

If you're anything like me, then Paul Verhoven's 1987 classic Robocop is embarrassingly high on a hypothetical "Best Movies Ever!" list. Say, top 25 or so. Maybe 26, depending on the last time you saw Total Recall.

If you've seen Robocop, you're probably keenly aware of Verhoven's scorn towards the world of consumerism. I mean, it's probably more apparent in the much maligned sequel (Robocop 2, which was cleverly named for the movie's antagonist), but those news broadcasts? The fake commercials? The fact that Detroit is owned by a slightly evil company that plans on leveling the place and putting up a luxury high rise? The "I'd buy that for a dollar!" guy? For a movie about a massive, robotic cop who prowls the mean streets of Detroit, there's an awful lot of jabs at society's greed.

With that in mind, can somebody explain any of the following YouTube videos?

I really want those Robochopsticks.

Amazon.com's description of Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue" is as hilarious as it is wrong...

2009-11-05T13:55:00.004-05:00

You probably don't need me to figure this one out, but Sarah Palin's autobiography is going to be huge. The same crowd of people who buy those Wal-Mart exclusive albums from bands who peaked in the mid 1970's are going to eat this book up like hotcakes put in front of a drunk frat boy at IHOP. And Mrs. Palin will not go away. Not now, not ever, and especially not if she manages to snag the G.O.P.'s nomination in 2012, especially if she comes out with another book about policy, lies, deceit, and the evilness of the left. Going Rogue, which comes out in two weeks, should prove to be the ideal launching point, if the product description is anything to go by:

One year ago, Sarah Palin burst onto the national political stage like a comet. Yet even now, few Americans know who this remarkable woman really is.

On September 3, 2008 Alaska Governor and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin delivered a speech at the Republican National Convention that electrified the nation and instantly made her one of the most recognizable women in the world.

As chief executive of America's largest state, she had built a record as a reformer who cast aside politics-as-usual and pushed through changes other politicians only talked about: Energy independence. Ethics reform. And the biggest private sector infrastructure project in U.S. history. And while revitalizing public school funding and ensuring the state met its responsibilities to seniors and Alaska Native populations, Palin also beat the political "good ol' boys club" at their own game and brought Big Oil to heel.

Like her GOP running mate, John McCain, Palin wasn't a packaged and over-produced candidate. She was a Main Street American woman: a working mom, wife of a blue collar union man, and mother of five children, the eldest of whom was serving his country in a yearlong deployment in Iraq and the youngest, an infant with special needs. Palin's hometown story touched a populist nerve, rallying hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans to the GOP ticket.

But as the campaign unfolded, Palin became a lightning rod for both praise and criticism. Supporters called her "refreshing" and "honest," a kitchen-table public servant they felt would fight for their interests. Opponents derided her as a wide-eyed Pollyanna unprepared for national leadership. But none of them knew the real Sarah Palin.

In this eagerly anticipated memoir, Palin paints an intimate portrait of growing up in the wilds of Alaska; meeting her lifelong love; her decision to enter politics; the importance of faith and family; and the unique joys and trials of life as a high-profile working mother. She also opens up for the first time about the 2008 presidential race, providing a rare, mom's-eye view of high-stakes national politics—from patriots dedicated to "Country First" to slick politicos bent on winning at any cost.

Going Rogue traces one ordinary citizen's extraordinary journey and imparts Palin's vision of a way forward for America and her unfailing hope in the greatest nation on earth.

It's not even worth picking apart paragraph by paragraph, but just take a look at that mess. I love how Alaska is referred to as "the nation's largest state," which it is, but not in any meaningful way. I love how, in less than 250 words, there are at least 150 different ways of describing Palin as "normal," "down to earth," and "like you, the common man." I also love the reprisal of McCain's awful slogan ("Country First"), and that the words "refreshing" and "honest" appear in quotation marks somewhat ironically.

Going Rogue is only $9 on Amazon, which is a low enough price point that I might just buy it because it’s about the same price as most of the awful horror movies I pay money to see in January for the laughs and frustration. Beyond that, I’ve been looking for the perfect book to pair with The God Delusion, just in case there’s a human in a closet at an Amazon building whose job it is to read receipts. I want to blow minds.

Ric Flair can't control his hands!

2009-11-02T02:08:00.003-05:00

I love Ric Flair as much as any other wrestling fan, but part of me is glad that the trainwreck that will be Hogan/Flair is happening in Australia. However, this Hulkamania thing is awesome for one reason: Bringing back the old school "Guy talks in front of logo for two minutes" segments that are sorely missing from today's television. In fact, Flair seems to be channeling The Ultimate Warrior:

And Hogan?

He sure seems excited to face the self pork claimed greatest wrestler in the world. More excited by the possibility that Flair will submit to his will.

Woo.

Movie Review: Cold Souls (2009)

2009-10-28T11:22:00.000-04:00

Half of me wants to admit that Cold Souls was an impulse decision--that I went to it because the French guy sleeping on the top bunk at the hostel in Philadelphia was snoring much too loudly at ten in the morning and that once my eyes were open with the sun shining in them, I had no choice but to shower, eat, and amble around Philly until my friend got off of work and seeing a movie at the prestigious Ritz East, where I'd previously seen The Hurt Locker seemed more worthwhile than the ultimate touristy endeavor, the guided tour.

However, that's not the entire truth, as the other half of me wants to believe that I went and saw Cold Souls because I was ashamed at having missed Charlie Kaufman's directing debut, last year's Synecdoche, New York. I know that Kaufman has absolutely nothing to do with the film, but watch the trailer for this high concept movie and tell me that it doesn't draw inspiration from Kaufman's work. The giant soul-ripping machine, the emphasis on the eclectic actors-as-artistes set, or what happens when a person's soul is snatched and put into a different body; all of these feel somewhat fimiliar, heck, even if you've only seen one of Kaufman's films.

Even though Kauffman's fingerprints are smudging the lens a bit, director Sophie Barthes' debut dances away from any direct accusations of copycating. It's a different movie alright, for better and for worse. This is an extremely straight forward movie with a clear narrative arc. Paul Giamatti, playing himself, finds that he is unable to get into the body of a character in one of Chekov's plays. He reads an article in the New Yorker about soul storage, goes to check it out for himself, climbs into the giant CT Scan looking machine and, presto!, out comes the soul, looking for all the world like a chickpea.

If you, like me, thought that what would follow would be a deep, meaningful excursion into one of life's bigger questions, the actual events the movie depicts after Giamatti consents may be a little disappointing. There are the usual platitudes about beautiful souls, albeit that they come with a nice poetic flourish, but, for the most part, the movie becomes a limp-wristed dramedy about Paul's attempt to get his soul back from a Russian mobster who has stolen it to give to his wife, who wants the soul of a great actor because she wants to do well in her role on a Russian sitcom.

This is what they call a "missed opportunity." Take away all of the comparisons between Sophie Barthes' debut film and the work of Kaufman, and you've still got a high concept that can go places and do things. While soulless Paul Giamatti can't act, can't get it up, and is somewhat lecherous, that's as far as the movie goes in examining the consequences of extracting your soul, looking at the damn thing, and putting it on ice. Paul is so unhappy that he requests a new soul, and, when that doesn't work, his soul, and when that doesn't work out because his soul's in Russia, we're so far away from the meat of the story that one wonders if there was any meat there at all. The high concept is trivial in the face of the movie's fetish for dry humor. Considering that I spent more of my time wondering if the soul storage procedure, which produces a change so minuscule that it probably wouldn't be noticed were it not for the script's pointing it out, was a sham played on poor Paul Giamatti and other like-minded readers of The New Yorker than I did laughing at any of the jokes, that's a crying shame.

Still, I wanted to like Cold Souls, even after I left the theater and walked back to the hostel, wondering why I still wanted to like it. It's the damned concept. Looking at my DVD collection, there are tons of films where quirky protagonists are forced to stand outside of themselves in order to get a better understanding of who they are and how they operate. This seems to be a favorite theme of indie film-making, the disaffected loner rising above whatever inner turmoil is stopping them from living life. It's something I've seen done much better before. And considering that Synecdoche, New York is the next thing in my Netflix queue, I'm sure it's something that I'll see done much better in the future.

Yeah, Well, That's Just Your Opinion, Man

Glitter/Doom

2009-10-21T19:56:00.003-04:00

Tom Waits is going on tour to promote his new, live album, Glitter and Doom. You can download the first 8 songs from the new album here. Its surly worth a listen.

Of particular delight to me was the live version of 'Get Behind the Mule' (previously on Mule Variations, 1999). I was less impressed by the re-working 'Singapore' but if you are familiar with the original (Rain Dogs, 1985) you can understand how it is a difficult song to improve on. But easily the most enjoyable track on the preview comes just before the end with 'Circus.' Its classic Tom Waits- five minutes of his alcoholic pirate drawl describing the big top for the down and out.

cml

Ladies and Gentlemen...Lego David Bowie

2009-10-16T11:51:00.004-04:00

If Lego Rockband includes Lego Aladin Sane Bowie, Lego Ziggy Stardust Bowie, and Lego Labyrinth David Bowie, it'll get my vote for the greatest video game ever made.

Edit: I just found out that T. Rex's "Ride a White Swan" is being included in the game. Weird choice, considering that most people in the States probably haven't heard a T. Rex song not titled "Bang a Gong (Get it On)," but if that means LEGO Marc Bolan, I'll buy my X-Box 360 immediately.

TONIGHT: St. Vincent (and Andrew Bird) @ Bogart's

2009-10-14T01:19:00.002-04:00

The wonderful Annie Clark, otherwise known as St. Vincent, is playing a gig tonight in Cincinnati in support of Actor, which will likely wind up topping my likely terrible year-end album list, should one miraculously appear. St. Vincent preformed at Bonnaroo this year, so I know what to expect, but I have a sneaking suspicion that her music is better appreciated in a concert hall, as opposed to an open stage amongst the shirtless, sweaty masses.

Andrew Bird, who also preformed at Bonnaroo, is technically the main event of the night, but I've seen Bird in the past, and, while I'm a fan of his stuff, he's never managed to catch me live. I haven't really listened to anything of his since 2008's Soldier On EP, but this has been somewhat of a banner year for Bird, as his Noble Beasts is one of the latest indie releases to chart high, hitting #12 on the Billboard album charts way back in January.

I'm pretty terrible when it comes to writing up my experiences at concerts, so if you're one of the few people out there who might care to read about what I thought about the show, I'd advise you to not hold your breath. I just figured I'd use this time to demonstrate how cool, hip, and bleeding edge I am, and to post a few St. Vincent videos.

"These Days" (Nico cover)

"Actor Out of Work"

"Dig A Pony" (The Beatles cover, obviously)

"Marrow"

"Jesus Saves, I Spend"

And, for the hell of it, the best Andrew Bird clip ever...

Dr. Stringz

Movie Review: Zombieland (2009)

2009-10-11T18:12:00.001-04:00

There are rules to living in a place like Zombieland, and lucky for us, one of the few humans left standing at the end of the world, a neurotic young college kid named Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) has them written all down. Those of us who are particularly doomed once there's no more room in Hell: The fat, the emotional, the heroic, and the ones who don't buckle up. If you can't bear to launch your grandmother through the windsheild of your stolen Cadillac Escalade, what good are you as humanity's last hope?

As it turns out, there are some people in Zombieland who don't obsessively keep a list of rules, and they've been doing just fine for themselves. Columbus first runs across Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), whose only rule in life is to enjoy the little things. Little things include raging on zombies, destroying formerly private property, and Twinkies, which are in stunningly short supply in this brave new world. Columbus and Tallahassee happen upon Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), two sisters who've made their living by pulling jobs on gullible guys like poor, hapless Columbus.

After the tension between the four subsides, our heroes head West to California, where Wichita and Little Rock hope to capture the innocence of a time before zombies by going to Pacific Playland. Going to a place with a lot of lights and noise and movement doesn't sound like the smartest thing to do in the midst of zombie Armageddon, and it isn't, but a carnival sounds like one heck of a place to kill a bunch of zombies, and it is.

But Pacific Playland isn't really the point of the movie, as Columbus, at various points in time, takes us away from the road trip and the zombie killing to give us little bits and pieces about who these people were before America became Zombieland. All four of them have trust issues: Columbus spent most of his life as a loner and only realized how valuable other people were once they started trying to eat him, Wichita and Little Rock have gotten by on lying, and Tallahassee doesn't have a reason for living outside of Twinkies and the elusive Zombie Kill of the Week award, and while it might seem obvious to somebody sitting in the theater that sticking together is the smart thing to do, one of Columbus' rules is to not get attached to anybody, and those rules are the only thing keeping him alive.

This is a very funny movie, maybe even the funniest of the year. The comparison to Shaun of the Dead is about as easy as it is incorrect, as the combination of zombies and comedy are about all they have in common. It's not even this movie's American sensibilities. Shaun of the Dead involved family and friends sticking together, about the unassuming sap at the center of the film finding his purpose. Zombieland is maybe a bit nihilistic in comparison. Four strangers come together, and all four of them have their reasons for living, but what happens when Tallahassee gets his Twinkie? The humans in this movie go on living just because it's better than the alternative.

And that's a nice change of pace. There is no false weightiness to any of the characters, and nobody ever mentions that they may be humanity's last hope. Everybody is too worried about their own skin to bother with saving humanity. There is no good or bad military force concerned with salvation or turning a profit, no dubious scientists who "accidentally" released a deadly bio-weapon into the air, and no half-witted attempt at social-mindedness. Zombie movies, for the most part, lost their capacity to reflect on society's ills the minute that biker gang started throwing pies at the undead in George Romero's unsurpassed Dawn of the Dead. It's nice that this movie, at least on the surface, wants nothing more than to make you laugh and gross you out a little, and surprising when, at the end of the movie, all of the characters involved seem plausible and well-rounded.

Maybe the third act, where a horde of the undead are killed in various gruesome, amusement park themed ways is a little disappointing in comparison to the spectacular middle section, but that's a small complaint. I probably wouldn't have even noticed the slight drop in comedy had it not been for the film's special guest, who steals the show without being the only thing worth talking about when the credits roll. Though it's probably public knowledge at this point, I won't spoil who the guest is like I did with the people I saw the movie with. It's something that's funnier if you go in unspoiled, but those bastards made fun of me for seeing Twilight, and thus earned my wrath.

I Really Like Your Style, Dude

Words cannot express this commercial...

2009-09-27T16:34:00.003-04:00

Ric Flair may be older than the woman who wants to ride Space Mountain.

Also, the Lions finally snapped their 19 game losing streak. I won't bore you with a big long ramble about how happy I am, so take my word for it: This is a great day.

How could you be so heartless?

2009-09-15T16:38:00.004-04:00

I wish I'd have thought of these first:

All of them come from here. None of Kanye interrupting ODB yet, which I'd rectify, but I just got a new computer and haven't yet gotten Photoshop.

And yes, I enjoyed my impromptu break very much.

The Worst Thing I've Heard All Day: Ghostface Killah (ft. Raheem DeVaughn) - Baby

2009-08-28T19:19:00.004-04:00

So I'm finally out of my post-Bonnaroo funk, where literally the only thing that could make me feel was Bruce Springsteen and excerpts from St. Vincent's Actor, and I find out that Ghostface Killah, without question one of the greatest rappers walking the planet today, has a new album coming out towards the end of September. It's called Wizard of Poetry, which, I guess, explains the Wu-Tang-meets-Wizard-of-Oz album cover:

And then, once I'm done clicking around the internet, I find that the first single, "Baby," has already leaked. Color me excited, right? I click the YouTube link...and then am smacked in the face by 100 tons of overwrought Auto-Tune. I don't know if anybody has put a finger on my musical tastes yet, what with the zero music-related posts this year, but I hate Auto-Tune. Not only does it smack of laziness, but it seems like a tool that's hell bent in obscuring the fact that whoever wrote the song didn't do a very good job of it. Point in fact: This song is an absolute trainwreck; hardly worth being appended to an album as bonus material, let alone as a lead single.

I get that this is Ghostface's attempt at R&B, and his hazy, half-baked come-ons are effective, as they usually are. I guess I don't mind the sample, but it smacks of mid-1990's commercial stuff. It doesn't dig at you and it doesn't go anywhere. A sweet nothing. It and Ghostface just don't go together. The chorus is where things really fall apart, Auto-Tune working overtime to obscure that DeVaughn isn't saying anything. I imagine that a woman, when faced with a line like "What a joy we've made/from the love we made. Yeah. Yeah." wouldn't know whether to smile politely and move the conversation along or roll her eyes full stop. There was more romance when Ghostface rhymed that he wasn't looking for love in "We Celebrate." At least then he was being honest.

I wouldn't quite compare it to Republicans trying to co-opt Born in the USA...

2009-08-20T14:25:00.004-04:00

But Mastercard's new "Break in Your Jeans" commercials are somewhat brazen in their ability to, well, miss the freaking point.

In the span of 30 seconds, you see Marlon Brando, John Wayne, the Ramones, Maralyn Monroe, and, if I'm not mistaken, some clip from Woodstock, along with some rebelous text about how any article of clothing that aren't jeans are for big, rich douchebags, narrated by the familiar Mastercard narrator, who may as well be the voice of my generation (sorry, Kanye).

I understand that business is business, and that making yourselves look cool is often a way of ensuring business with my crowd, but at least three of the five clips used in this commercial, to speak nothing of David Bowie and his iconic 70's material, spoke against conformity. Mastercard: You are a credit card company. I hate to point that out, but it's the truth, plain and simple. You are the man you're so keen on rebelling against. Instead, you should have gone with this:

Jimmy Clanton - Venus in Blue Jeans

The Blue Collar Comedy Guys

Nickleback

This douche.

With that being said, I will now present myself as an awful hypocrite:

This Levi's ad, directed by Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre), is stunning, combining hipsters with two enduring figures of Americana: Jeans, and Walt Whitman. For one minute and two seconds, I was not annoyed that movie theaters have taken to playing unescapable, often terrible ads before their movies--I was overtaken by this most excelent reading of Walt Whitman's "Pioneers! O Pioneers!," a poem that is somewhat overlooked because we take Whitman for granted, especially if the poem isn't "Song of Myself" or about Lincoln.

The reading is from a 1957 album of recordings from Whitman's seminal Leaves of Grass, by a group called The University Players. It would be long out of print were it not for Smithsonian Folkways, a non-profit record label opporated by the Smithsonian Institute. It is, for my money, one of the unhearalded aspects of our government; that somewhere, someone is preserving our history of recorded sound. They do this with movies too, via the National Film Registry. Films as diverse as All About Eve and The Terminator will be around as long as there is a United States, ready to be chopped up and regurgitated into Levi's ads at a moment's notice. If they're as good as this one, and don't shill as hard as the Mastercard one, I'll allow it. Hell, I might even like it enough to not mind that it's standing between me and my movie.

Pioneers! O Pioneers!
by Walt Whitman

Come my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental
blood intervein'd,
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O resistless restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress,
(bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon'd mistress,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

See my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

On and on the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill'd,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill'd.
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the pulses of the world,
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Life's involv'd and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Lo, the darting bowling orb!
Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,
We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you daughters of the West!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done your work,)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Not for delectations sweet,
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious,
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding
on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the daybreak call--hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind,
Swift! to the head of the army!--swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Movie Review: District 9 (2009)

2009-08-19T17:31:00.003-04:00

Neill Blomkamp's District 9 is a minor miracle: At $30 million, it proves that you can make a visually exciting, tense, action-packed science fiction movie that looks good, sounds good, is well acted, and blows things up without resorting to product tie-ins, ADHD editing, liberal amounts of slo-mo, or camera tricks that smack of television commercials. District 9 is the anti-Transformers: Popcorn space opera with a smart, hard sci-fi shell.

I'll be frank and say that the hard sci-fi aspects come to a screeching halt around midway through the movie, but until that point, what we have is fascinating. An alien craft comes to hover above Johannesburg, South Africa, eschewing the usual landing spots of Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Moscow. After much deliberation, humans bore into the mothership and make a shocking discovery: A horde of writhing, malnourished extraterrestrials who look a bit like Abe from the awesome-but-somewhat-forgotten Oddworld video games, if Abe had tentacles and mandibles.

Or maybe not, but I wanted to be clever and obscure. Clever obscura?

Having had no experience with aliens who don't look like us, look like angels, look like stuffed animals, speak our language, blow up our landmarks, or come preaching peace (...or else!), humanity decides to do what it can: Temporarily house them in District 9. Temporary becomes 20 years, long enough for D9 to become a shanty town whose inhabitants pick at garbage heaps for scrap and treat cat food like a five star delicacy. Humanity, expecting more from a race of beings who have mastered interstellar travel, want the aliens out. Multinational United, an organization dedicated to philanthropy, private security, and weapons manufacturing, are ready, willing, and able to make this happen - the Prawns will be evicted and moved to District 10.

There's a lot of corporate whitewash and "what can you do?" all over this, like the guys at the top of the multimillion dollar corporation really wanted to help but just couldn't for whatever reason, which just so happens to be a haul of alien weaponry that blows the doors off of human tech but requires the bio-signature of a Prawn to work. MNU can confiscate all the weapons it wants from District 9, but confiscation is about all they can do.

Which isn't to say that they're not on the lookout for some sort of skeleton key, which is likely why they're keen on serving eviction notices. The man in charge of this operation, Wikus van de Merwe (an awesome, previously unknown Sharlto Copley), videotapes the grisly proceedings, like a soldier at Abu Garib who assumes that the film will never fall out of his hands. Caught on tape, van de Merwe's condescending behavior towards Prawns, eviction notices signed at shotgun-point, violence, a mafia element, souvenir-taking, and abortion. Wikus has a grin on his face through all of it, unless he's made to look like a fool, which happens quite often, like when he inspects a strange canister that crackles like a Geiger counter and it sprays out a viscus black liquid that was previously seen being cooked on a home chemistry set. Is this some sort of alien meth? Hardly, but poor Van De Merwe reacts poorly to it, throwing up. Later, his arm is broken. Then he has a sort of odd nosebleed. He goes home to his wife after this awful day, only to stumble into a surprise party celebrating his promotion. He throws up all over the cake. He heads to the hospital. He becomes an extremely valuable medical experiment; Gregor Samsa with a bounty on his head.

This, basically, is where the movie stops being an allegory and starts being a chase thriller. Blomkamp could very well have stuck with the docudrama feel, giving us glimpses into Wikus metamorphosis and a treatise on human nature, and I still would have liked it. Instead, he creates an incredibly paced, tightly narrated chase through the slums, where van de Merwe is targeted by both MNU and a Nigerian gang that wants to eat his arm, believing that it will grant them the ability to wield their stockpile of alien weaponry that is otherwise scrap. Acting as van de Merwe's accomplices are two Prawns, Christopher Joseph and his son, who has cute, big, wet googly eyes that had one of the girls I went to see the movie with cooing about how adorable the little guy was, like Wall-E with tentacles.

As it turns out, Christopher Joseph is not a scrounger. He and his son are two of maybe three intelligent Prawns who are seen in the movie, and it is he who cooks up the black fluid, which isn't a virus but a fuel of some kind. He also says that he can cure Wikus. "I knew you Prawns were intelligent!" he says, more relieved that he won't have to become one than pleasantly surprised at his "discovery."

I have a theory about Christopher Joseph: He isn't the only smart Prawn in District 9. Sure, what we see of the Prawns before he becomes the central one isn't a pretty picture. They riot, they pick garbage, they enjoy catfood, and they're apparently stupid, completely failing to meet our expectations as to what a visiting species would be, looks aside. But where do all of our images of Prawns come from before Wikus unknowingly stumbles into Christopher Joseph's shack? The documentary footage of Wikus' journey into the camp, and news footage. Consider the state of the news media, then ask what the sexier headline is: "Are Aliens Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" or "Aliens Land; Ask for Directions to Alpha Centauri." We see what we want to see, and after 20 years of seeing an alien craft hovering and rusting above a major metropolis, many of us would stop seeing an intelligent race with the ability to travel throughout the galaxy, preferring instead to think that, back home, the Prawns pick through garbage heaps for food, hoping for a scrap that tastes like Fancy Feast. This is why people who go to Sea World don't see dolphins as incredibly smart creatures, but as constantly smiling dopes who are happy to do back flips for minnows. In the D9 time line, Earth has been given 20 years to think that the Prawns are dumb, violent, bumbling creatures. We create stereotypes, then give their subjects no choice but to live within it. I don't know what that's worth coming from a white college kid, so take it for what you will.

On the other hand, the Nigerian gang who are shown selling cat food, other meat, and sex to Prawns for guns and money are one dimensional, meant to intimidate, rather than educate. They eat Prawn parts to gain their power, adhere to voodoo, and do little more than leer, yell, and shoot things. There aren't many positive black figures in the movie (the only one I can really think of has an extremely minor part), but it wasn't exactly like Blomkamp went out of his way to make Wikus the world's most likable white man, either. I don't want to accuse anybody of nitpicking, but what does it say when we complain that the secondary villains, who are there basically as deus ex machina/cannon fodder, aren't well developed? Not every white man acting as VP of some division in a weapons manufacturing company is an ethics-skirting asshole in a power suit, but I don't see too many people coming out of the woodwork to suggest that Blomkamp's portrayal of the 21st century business man was less than fair to the 21st century business man. Suggesting that this is how the movie sees all Africans (Nigerians, at least) as violent, ill-tempered, voodoo warriors is like suggesting that Silence of the Lambs sees all MTF transsexuals as knife-wielding, dungeon-digging, skin care obsessed psychopaths, and Silence didn't even give the courtesy of having a nice transsexual somewhere in the background.

If anything, the film's fatal flaw was its third act, a shootout that was exciting but that added nothing in terms of message. I won't go so far as to call it a cop-out, but the film leaves things very much up in the air, not wanting to answer any of its own questions or follow up with the Prawns, who are moved into District 10, described by Wikus as being like concentration camps, via title card. I was glad for the shootout, not wanting to be lectured after a breathless second act, but yeah, it was a wee bit thin, and leaves us with enough uncertainty that a follow-up would be awfully convenient for all involved; which I actually wouldn't mind, providing that it focused on the slums and the Prawns more than MNU and weapons. There's room enough for an effective political statement, but 33 years after apartheid, a lecture smacks of apology, which, as an Irishman, I didn't want from Gangs of New York, either. This isn't a movie about racism, but it doesn't use the allegory as a mere prop, either.

Probably the best movie of it's kind since Total Recall. If you know anything about me, you know that's extremely high praise.

The Dude Abides

No wonder Asia stands to dominate us...

2009-08-16T12:27:00.003-04:00

Their kids hit puberty and start talking like clean versions of Notorious B.I.G. albums from the tender age of eight. We're lucky if kids ever escape that phase.

Movie Review: Funny People (2009)

2009-08-13T17:43:00.000-04:00

Judd Apatow’s Funny People is not so much a comedy about funny people as it is an aggressive war against stereotypes. The two most prominently attacked: That comedians are funny in “real” life, all the time, 24/7; and that everybody who survives cancer has this miraculous, dramatic, It’s a Wonderful Life/A Christmas Carol mid-life turnaround, wherein the misanthropic hero’s heart grows three sizes, the Christmas bird is put on the table, and he’s going to live a better life, dammit.

George Simmons (Adam Sandler) is not a good person. You could, if you wanted to, draw a comparison between him and C.F. Kane. Both live alone in their huge houses, interacting mainly with staff. Both have many acquaintances and business associates, but no friends. Both have gained an incredible amount of wealth, material and monetary. Both seem destined to die alone and misunderstood. Simmons, unlike Kane, is woken up from his long nightmare by a sudden revelation: He has cancer. Worse: It’s a cancer that only eight percent of people survive.

George is distraught, as most people who are told that they have an eight percent chance of coming out of treatment alive. He decides to go back to stand-up comedy, an odd choice for a superstar comic with piles of movie offers on his kitchen counter, and winds up playing to silenced crowds at the Improv, who don’t get that his “How will you go on without me?” act isn’t really an act—he wants to know how America will go on without one of its icons. “Why me?” mixed with “You poor bastards.”

Meanwhile, Ira Wright (Seth Rogen, who lost weight) is an aspiring comedian who works at a grocery store and sleeps on his friend’s couch. His roommates, a more successful comic (Jonah Hill, who didn’t lose weight), and the star of an awful, teen-orientated sitcom (Jason Schwartzman, perpetually skinny), and his co-worker at the deli (RZA) all point out his fatal flaw: He isn’t funny. It’s sad, and perhaps lucky, that he has to go on after George, who just bombed. When his original material doesn’t go over so well, he starts ragging on George, who is looking on in the back sullenly.

George hires Ira to write jokes for him and eventually become his assistant. For Ira, it's a dream job. He gets to open for George, hang out in a massive house, and get paid to write material for stand-up comedy. For George, it's a necessity. Ira is the first person in some time he has let into his life, the first person to realize how crushing his lonely existance is, and the first person to find out that he has cancer.

From there, the movie changes gears. It becomes less about funny people and more about the process of finding oneself. George has a lot of soul-searching to do, and, unlike 99% of movie characters who go through his situation, he isn't very good at it. Sure, things seem to be moving along while he's sick, but what's to stop George Simmons from going back to being a jerk when he's healthy?

Nothing, which is why he becomes a celebrimonster as soon as the doctor (Torsten Voges) tells him to go out and make another movie. Rather than do that, George wants to pursue Laura (Leslie Mann), the woman he would have married had not he cheated on her. The problem with that plan of action is that Laura is married to Clark (Eric Bana) and has two kids. He has a choice: Make himself happy and destroy a family, or look for happiness elsewhere.

If that's what you expected to see going in, more power to you. You were clearly paying attention during Knocked Up, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshal, or his TV shows. If you were expecting an Adam McKay-like parade of dick, fart, and masturbation jokes with nothing else, you might walk out a little nonplussed. "Funny People?" you might ask. "Was I supposed to laugh when Sarah Silverman made her face look like a vagina, or was Judd just fucking with me?"

Well no, probably not. The people making the trailers are likely to blame, not that the Comedy Central stand-up special helped any. Any time two comedians are in the same room in this movie, there is some kind of awkwardness, an invisible competition running between the two, and an odd, mutual loathing. The jokes they crack offstage are often not funny, they don't look happy shaking hands and taking pictures with people they don't know, and, you may be shocked, the big guys hire open mic night people to write jokes for them. Only Eminem seems to get it, but if he believes what he's saying, every new release is the highest form of cowardice. It's all an act, even when it isn't.

I, like most people, I imagine, liked the first half of Funny People more than the second. While I won't go out on a limb and call Apatow indulgent for putting his wife and kids front and center, I do wonder at why two radically different movies were smashed together, pushing an extremely likable Seth Rogen so far into the background that, at one point, he is told to go watch a movie with the kids...which he does without protest.

Stand-up comedy is a heavily veiled world that few ever get a peek at, and Apatow went with a brilliant set-up to give the audience a chance to see where our favorite stand-ups got their start. It's unique. It's fresh. Marital drama, no matter how well it's executed, seems a bit dull by comparison. The tacked-on ending helps neither half of the movie.

That doesn't mean that Funny People isn't a movie without a lot to say. If anything, it has too much to say and spends too much time finding the words. While it might go unappreciated now because August is the month usually dedicated to Sandler fare like You Don't Mess With the Zohan, this is a challenging, sometimes brilliant movie waiting to be picked up and appreciated by people who want something beyond the dick and fart jokes. This is no minor entry in Apatow's canon.

Far Fucking Out

Hey guys, did you hear? Barack Obama's a natural-born American!

2009-08-13T16:30:00.002-04:00

John Hughes

2009-08-07T01:04:00.002-04:00

Two reasons why everybody should watch Doomsday, right the hell now:

2009-08-04T00:46:00.006-04:00

Seriously, it took until the year 2008 for some guy to put these two in a movie together?

A Shiny New Dime

2009-08-03T00:10:00.007-04:00

To the best of my knowledge, no reader of this blog has yet ponied up the $16 I require to purchase, and nobody from io9.com has gotten in touch with me about reparations for trying to steal my seat on the incredibly popular Greedo Lives bandwagon. However, you can help me in obtaining a relic of a different sort: A shiny new dime from Pulitzer Prize winning film critic Roger Ebert!

The extremely rare "Thumbs Perpendicular" rating.

That's right, I've been nominated as one of eighteen finalists in Roger Ebert's Not the New Yorker Caption Contest, created to spite the Wizard-of-Oz-like demagogues in charge of the New Yorker's caption contest, which, like me, you, and everybody I know, Mr. Ebert has never won. Here is the cartoon, and my caption, which Josh Pothen found worthy of nomination. Thanks, Josh!

"I just got back from 'Transformers,' and I want to apologize."

If you wish to vote for my caption, or any caption, click over to Ebert's post, here. There's some pretty good ones, all of them being better than the three finalists chosen by the New Yorker. Here, for your convenience, are the rules.

1. Send at e-mail to answerman@gmail.com.
2. On the Subject line, type the word "Caption" and the number of your candidate, 1 through 18.
3. That's it. No message is necessary. I will read only the headers. Polls close at 4 p.m, CDT Tuesday, Aug. 4.

I am caption 5.

Vote early and vote often, as the Democrat would say.

io9 is riding my coattails.

2009-07-30T15:02:00.003-04:00

Well, not really, but I still feel like pointing this out. io9, supreme science fiction blog of the universe, posted the following queery on their website on Monday, a mere three days ago: What if Greedo really shot first?

Their answer is fine enough, I suppose (he keeps shooting, and shooting, and shooting, like a trigger happy Energizer Bunny), but forgets one, important thing: Greedo lives!

What's amazing is that the io9 article has some 38,101 views and no less than 74 comments in three days, while my poor, year-old labor of love has but five comments from 110 views. Here's a random sample taken from both pages, to show you how much praise I'm not getting:

Taken from Careful With That Blog, Eugene:

Han shot first because he is a bad ass.

Greedo is a loser.

Luke saved him from his bad ass ways, much like Jesus, and turned him around to a good citizen.

Pre-Luke, Han is shotting up over grown bugs like Greedo for trafficing inter galactic goods.

Post luke han is saving the galaxy and making it with Luke's sister.

Hot.

-Hampez

Taken from io9.com:

I'm slightly stunned and mystified. Truly hit up George with this for another spin off Christmas special.

-Go Team Venture

Dark Horse needs to give you an Infinities series, or at least a one-shot. Seriously.

-MartaClam

That was the most inspired imaginative kick ass funny or die imagined alternate universe story I have ever or will ever read.

You are one brilliantly inventive writer and frakking hilarious my friend. We all owed you immense thanks. I am splitting a gut!

-SamidhaTheia

My only solace is that, as it stands, I am nestled between Wookiepedia's entry on Greedo and io9, resting comfortably at the #2 spot for the search term "Greedo lives," which nobody has ever searched for. Believe me. I would know. I feel cheated. Slighted. A bit two-shade at this awful turn of events. Greedo Lives was supposed to be my moment in the sun; Greedo's moment in the sun!

But no. It has been stolen from me, from us, just like Indiana Jones stole the Ark of the Covenant from the Nazis. Further rubbing it in my face is the io9 article's heading: "Steal This Pitch." Duely noted, Charlie Jane Anders. You know how you can make up for your sin against me?

Bogart me a case of Tru Blood.

Barack Obama has a serious problem...

2009-07-29T11:13:00.003-04:00

Common sense dictates that Barack Obama wouldn't hate white people, being half-white himself, but Glenn Beck hasn't proven that he has a lick of common sense; it's just the title of his new book.

How sad is it when the pushovers on Fox 'n Friends treat your theory like you just said the Hamburglar shot JFK?

Tru Blood

2009-07-28T19:24:00.009-04:00

Walking around New York City around this time last year, I noticed advertisements for the above beverage plastered around town as a means of promoting HBO and Alan Ball's vampire soap opera/social satire True Blood, which, I'll be honest, I'm 100% addicted to. I scoffed then, thinking that all modern vampires were made alike: Polite, foppish bastards who sparkle in the daylight. Vampires who'd drink strange, synthetic, Japanese-made blood? No thanks.

Of course, HBO's strategy was brilliant. True Blood, while not approaching The Sopranos numbers, is still huge success, and is being credited for revitalizing the network's sagging line-up which, even with hits like Big Love and Entourage, suffered miserable failures like John From Cincinnati while passing on shows like Mad Men. But that really isn't the reason for this post. And I'm not posting to hypothesize about the Japanese's motive for creating a synthetic blood for vampires when vampires were, until Tru Blood was released, were still very much in the casket.

No, this post is about the actual, real world Tru Blood; a carbonated, blood orange drink that costs (drumroll, please) $16 for a four pack. That's $4 for every 14 oz. bottle which, meticulously crafted through it may be, doesn't justify the expense - you have to add your own damn alcohol!

HBO's online store describes the miracles of this drink thusly:

This blood orange flavored soda is slightly tart, lightly sweet and subtly carbonated. Designed to taste great while matching the appearance of Bill’s favorite drink, the drink pours like a regular soda, but with the standing appearance in a glass is stormy and mysterious.

I won't ask how a drink can be "subtly" carbonated, but goddamn if I don't want to see it standing in a glass so I can marvel at its stormy and mysterious appearance, preferably as it takes one of these suggested forms:

The Fangbanger - Tru Blood, Vodka
Death on the Beach - Tru Blood, Peach Schnapps, Pineapple Juice, Vodka
Plasmapolitan - Tru Blood, Citron, Cointreau, Fresh Lime Juice

This isn't even a first for the show: Since its popularity took off, shirts, jewelry, and pint glasses as seen in each episode have gone up for sale as soon as the credits on that particular episode are done rolling, presumably so you can pretend to have gone to Merlotte's Bar and Grill or the Fangtasia blood bar. I realize that this isn't new. Any nerd can own an exact replica of Aragon's sword, and I'm sure more than a few people have shelled out their hard earned money for Sex Panther, which probably doesn't smell like Bigfoot's dick, and probably works less than sixty percent of the time, every time. However, with the exception of maybe the Goodburger about four blocks from the U.N. (and that's not even officially related to the movie, slogan or not), this is the first time I can recall being able to ingest something created for the purpose of fiction, and as an ardent fan of fiction, I'm really, really excited to drink this make-believe drink. Perhaps more excited than loser fans of dead sodas who discover the secret to making their own batch of Crystal Pepsi.

I'm thinking either two things: One, I act like a good fan and pre-order my four pack of Tru Blood, or two, I use my massive influence over time, space, and the internet to get a sample, like those mommybloggers P&G sends Mr. Clean Magic Erasers to. Yes, I'll submit to the evils of blogger payola to get a free sip of this drink, which is probably going to be the greatest thing of my sad, pop culture fueled life, but I have no idea how to sell my soul. I went so far as to ask Google, and the answer, so far as I can tell, is "be popular."

Well, according to the various Batman-like gizmos I use to monitor the number of people who read this blog, I'm not popular, so that probably puts payola right out, though if the makers of Tru Blood want me to market their drink to the sixty or so people who land on my blog every time I post, or the dozens more who wind up here because they want to know the name of the blonde in Zombie Strippers, or to my friends who, despite my nagging, still haven't watched an episode of True Blood, I'm all ears.

In the meantime, I can only hope that the obscure nature of the search term "Tru Blood" will launch me past the respectable newspapers who have also reported on the reality of True Blood. Considering my previous successes with search terms like "Heathcliff," "Awful Characters," and "Norris-Gate," I anticipate I'll be noticed the next time the makers of Tru Blood Google their site to see if they've usurped the show's official website.

You, the faithful readers of this blog, should either pony up the $16 bucks so I can avoid the unnecessary flattery, or should do whatever viral media thing that lands dumb blogs like mine on the front pages of Google. StumbleUpon? Facebook? Reblogging this like I'm some kind of witty Tumblr blog? I don't care what you do. I don't care what you think of me. HBO's marketing savagery has me in its awful grip. I can smell the beast's breath, and it smells like blood orange.

And if you're wondering to yourself what, exactly, is in it for you, know this: When that sweet orange nectar touches my taste buds and tickles my tonsils for the very first time, I'll raise my Merlotte's pint glass full of Tru Blood to the night sky in honor of all those I walked over to get my bottle.

This blood's for you.

---

Tru Blood's website.
Buy me a 4-pack.
Start watching the show!

And, for kicks, the mind-bendingly awesome opening credits: