Mr. Fabulous

The Tampon Game

2006-02-18T15:36:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the Diva Queen for forwarding this game. The rules are simple: Take a movie title and replace one word with the word tampon. The result is supposed to be more or less funny. A selection, based on various e-mail strings collected by Mrs. Fabulous, follows below.

If you'd like to join in the game, post your favorite tampon-related movie title in the comments section. I'll collect the best and post them here.

Action:
Full Metal Tampon
The Hunt for Red Tampon
Raiders of the Lost Tampon
Tampon: First Blood
Tampon Harbor
Tampons are Forever

Drama:
Brokeback Tampon
Tampons and Misdemeanors
Dances with Tampons
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Tampon
Hannah and Her Tampons
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Tampons
Memoirs of a Tampon
My Own Private Tampon
Remember the Tampons
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Tampon
Tampon and Flow
Tamponspotting

Romance:
Four Weddings and a Tampon
How Stella Got Her Tampon Back
How to Lose a Tampon in Ten Days
The Runaway Tampon
Tamponless in Seattle
When Tampon Met Sally

Comedy:
The 40 Year Old Tampon
Dude, Where's My Tampon?
The Longest Tampon
Mean Tampons
A Mighty Tampon
My Big Fat Greek Tampon
Revenge of the Tampons
Tampon Crashers

Sci-Fi:
Attack of the 50 Foot Tampon
E.T. - The Extra Tampon
Invasion of the Tampon Snatchers
Planet of the Tampons
The Tampon After Tomorrow
The Tampon: Reloaded

Horror:
28 Tampons Later
House of 1,000 Tampons
Night of the Living Tampon
The Silence of the Tampons

Fantasy:
Charlie and the Tampon Factory
Edward Tamponhands
How the Grinch Stole Tampons
Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Tampons
The Lord of the Tampons: The Fellowship of the Tampon

Animated:
Finding Tampon
Lady and the Tampon
Snow White and the Seven Tampons
Tampons, Inc.

Classic:
Gone With the Tampon
The Sound of Tampons
A Tampon Named Desire

It's hours of fun, no?

RIP, Nice Guy Eddie

2006-01-25T13:11:00.000-05:00

Man, what a drag.

In honor of the passing of actor Chris Penn, a snippet from Tarantino's brilliant dialogue in Reservoir Dogs:

Nice Guy Eddie: Did you see that daddy? Guy got me on the ground and he tried to fuck me.

Mr. Blonde: You wish.

Nice Guy Eddie: Listen Vic, I don't mind what you do, but don't try to fuck me in my father's office, I don't think of you that way. I like you a lot man, but I don't think of you that way.

Mr. Blonde: Eddie, if I was a butt cowboy, I wouldn't even throw you to the posse.

Nice Guy Eddie: Of course not, you'd keep me for yourself, you sick bastard. Four years of fuckin' punks up the ass you'd appreciate a piece of prime rib when you see one.

Live blogging the Golden Globes

2006-01-18T22:29:00.000-05:00

On Monday, January 16, NBC broadcast the annual Golden Globes award ceremony. Having absolutely nothing better to do on a Monday night, Mr. Fabulous and his wife, the lovely and talented Mrs. Fabulous, recorded our thoughts about the Globes in a running broadcast commentary. It’s such fascinating reading, we know you’ll want to hang with us all the way to the end.

I. Mr. Fabulous begins
We’re watching the Golden Globes pre-game show right now. In a nutshell, it’s the pretty and dim being interviewed by the congenitally stupid. Matt Dillon and Johnny Depp seem heavily medicated. Anthony Hopkins has slipped back into Remains-of-the-Day mode. Maria Carrey is surprisingly coherent. Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker actually seem happy. Mrs. Fabulous and I are rooting for them to stay together—because if they get divorced, then there’s no hope for any married couple in Hollywood. Hillary Swank without Chad Lowe, for example, looks like the Skipper without Gilligan.

Jamie Foxx is going to hook up with his interviewer after the show. Confirmed.

Scarlett Johansson gives new meaning to the phrase “golden globes.”

II. The Show
What a terrible, wretched takeoff of that wretched Pussycat Dolls song for the opener. Good gravy, shame is dead in this country.

Queen Latifah— remember when she hated whitey?

Adrian Brody— what an ugly fucking tux. Best Supporting Actor coming up… George Clooney, Matt Dillon, Will “Ego Train” Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Bob Hoskins. The GG goes to… Clooney for Syriana. Good choice. Clooney’s had a great year. Plus he pulled a De Niro in that movie, so come on. Great dig on Jack Abramoff at the end.

Best Supporting Actress. Scarlett Johansson… Shirley MacLaine, Frances McDormand, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams. I’m rooting for Williams… but Weisz takes it down. She looks like one of Captain Kirk’s conquests on Star Trek.

III.
Jessica Alba… you just can’t call her anything but smokin’ hot. The TV awards are on now… pardon me while I doze off.

Superman Returns star Brandon Routh is let out in public for the first time. He looks uncannily like the late Christopher Reeve. But it’s more TV stuff, so it’s time to surf Fark.com. But wait! Sandra Oh staves off certain coma with a cool acceptance speech. “I feel like I’ve been set on fire!”

IV.
Drew Barrymore needs a Wonderbra— the girls are hanging low. She introduces Good Night, and Good Luck., which oughta win something. David Strathairn is an actor’s actor, a veteran of the trenches, and is enjoying some late recognition for a lifetime of fantastic work.

When did Natalie Portman become Winona Ryder?

More TV stuff. Haven’t seen any of it, so I can’t comment… but Gina Davis’s thank-you speech for Commander in Chief kicked ass. Girlfriend has got it going on. So does Evangeline Lily— but in an entirely different way.

V.
Melanie Griffith looks like she’s about to collapse into a pile of tattooed limbs, fake tits and plastic surgery scars. She’s introducing The Producers… which is the next best thing to paying $200 to see it on Broadway.

More TV… haven’t seen a single one of these made-for-TV movies. I’ll bet some of em are good, but I’ll never see one. Empire Falls wins… too bad Paul Newman isn’t around. Seeing him in his twilight years makes me feel old as shit. Pamela Anderson, meanwhile, may be the greatest drag queen who ever lived.

The Steve Carell winning streak continues. Let’s hope he doesn’t board the Ego Train like Will Farrell. His speech rocks, though. Everybody seems to realize that this idiotic broadcast is supposed to entertain those of us whose lives are so pathetic and sad that we have nothing better to do on a Monday night but watch the Golden Globes.

VI. Mr. Fabulous bows out to take a dump
Mrs. Fabulous here— I’m waiting for the commercial break to be over and just looking over Mr. F’s notes. Always with Evangeline Lily. Ugh! What about the dude who plays Sawyer? Have to keep my eyes peeled for a glimpse of him. See, I don’t even know his name so I think my lusting is less offensive than his…

Tim Robbins. Isn’t he one of those Scientologists? Can’t look at him without seeing him as a puppet in Team America: World Police. He looks better as a puppet. He oughta lay off whatever it is he’s smoking, snorting or huffing, because he looks rough.

Ugh. Jamie Foxx. There’s a guy who’s so in love with himself that he could never find a woman who could love him more. Yes, you can sing, but enough already!!

Time for Best Actress in a musical or comedy. Judi Dentch, Keira Knightley— I’m way jealous of that young, talented, pretty thing— Laura Linney for The Squid and the Whale: want to see it, but I need to forget about her horrible role in Mystic River— Sarah Jessica Parker, Reese Witherspoon. Walk the Line is hardly a comedy or a musical…interesting choice. Reese wins it just seconds after Mr. F says he hopes she gets it. Good for you, dear. She’s cute as a bug and I didn’t even hate those Legally Blonde movies, even though that type of chick-flick ain’t usually my bag, baby. She’s thanking Joaquin Phoenix, who used to be quite a looker but has never fully recovered from Ladder 49.

Chris Rock awards Best Actress in a TV comedy. All the Desperate Housewives, of course. That Chris— so funny. I’m kind of sick of looking at these ladies, and I don’t even watch the show— but I accidentally have a subscription to Star magazine, so I’m sick of seeing them in those pages week after week after week. Can’t wait ‘til that subscription runs out so I can quit reading it cover to cover. I know more about Kevin Federline than I ever wanted to…and I had never even heard of him before.

Rock says Eva Longoria is nominated for Chico and the Man. That Weeds chick needs to RE-LAX! And she wins! Thank God! We won’t have to watch one of the Housewives rub it into the rest of the cast’s faces for the remainder of the year. And we thought she had no shot. Mary Louise Parker— I always get her and Bridgette Fonda mixed up– don’t ask me how. Well, let’s see if Mr. F. likes what I’m doing….we’ll see if I’m fired or not.

VII.
Emmas Thompson: now there’s half of a couple I had hoped would stay together. She and Kenneth Branagh were one of my first favorite couples to fall apart. She’s slowly turning into Julie Andrews. Introducing Pride and Prejudice… she looks nice. It’s so weird to see how low some women’s tits are, but I guess that’s natural. The ones that stand up, I guess must be fake. I’m too scared to look at my own boobs, thank you very much.

Eric Bana. Oh, yeah. Saw him on the red carpet ,and knew his name sounded familiar but couldn’t place him – Munich. Duh. He’s handsome.

Kenneth Branagh, Warm Springs. Oops. Best actor in a TV movie or mini-series. There’s the other half of the ex-couple. Ed Harris, Empire Falls. I’m sick of this show already and I never even saw it— although I do love me some Ed Harris. Nice face, Ed. Bill Nighy, The Girl in the Café. Never heard of it. We’re not TV folks, per se. I mean, we see our fair share of TV, don’t get me wrong. Between TLC, the Food Network and let’s not forget my personal favorite, The Weather Channel, we watch a lot.

Jonathon Rhys Meyers as Elvis. Man, I read about this in one of my Star mags, I guess too late. We would have liked to have seen that show. Donald Sutherland, Human Trafficking. If you’re Kiefer, you have to be scared for what you’re going to look like in a few years. Speaking of Kiefer, there is no way in hell I could ever get into 24 thanks to that stupid fucking Phone Booth movie. Every time I hear his voice, I hear, “A ringing phone just has to be answered.” And you just have to be destroyed…you should have stuck with The Lost Boys.

Jonathan won. Go, King! Too bad it wasn’t on MTV or something because you know they’d be replaying it a million times. Oh, well. I guess we can rent it from Netflix when the time comes. Is he Irish? What the ham sandwich?? If it’s not Scottish, it’s crap! Skinny tie, though. He looks like he just stepped out of Trainspotting. Now I really want to see him as Elvis.

Best actress in a mini series or TV movie. Halle Berry, Their Eyes Were Watching God. This must be like the first role in which she doesn’t take her clothes off…Kelly MacDonald, The Girl in the Café. Mr. F. says she was in Trainspotting. S. Epatha Merkerson, Lackawanna Blues. You have to wonder what the S. stands for if Epatha seemed like a better choice…Cynthia Nixon, Warm Springs. Seeing her makes me think of lesbians. which reminds me of Sandra Oh, who thanked her rock, Margo. Is she a carpet-muncher? Not that there’s anything wrong with that….You’re getting married on Saturday?!? Mira Sorvino, Human Trafficking. Missed this one as well. Haven’t seen her since that horrible horror flick, the name of which escapes me. That was some compelling acting…hope she doesn’t win. Oh, good. S. Epatha won. Never heard of this picture, but we saw earlier that Terrence Howard was in it, too, and I think he’s fabulous. S. is 53 and she said it’s her first starring role in a movie. And she’s having hot flashes. Though her name remains a mystery, she seems like a nice woman. Oh, she’s from Law & Order. Thought she looked familiar. Has L&O been on for 16 years?

VIII. Mr. Fabulous returns.
Match Point— gotta catch it as soon as it reaches the hinterlands. Wags are calling it the best Woody Allen film since Crimes and Misdemeanors, which is high praise indeed considering that the latter film is Woody’s best ever.

Virginia Madsen continues the Golden Globes tit parade… screenplay award. Match Point, Good Night, and Good Luck., Crash, Munich, Brokeback Mountain. We’ll see if Brokeback starts racking them up…. Yep. Brokeback is now the undisputed front-runner for Best Picture at the Oscars. But Munich and Good Night are both better films. Larry McMurtry looks and sounds like a South Park character.

IX.
A couple of no-name TV actors give the award for Best TV comedy. The show about the four suburban drag queens won. Thank god for TV, though, because it keeps 40-something bulimic actresses employed. Lord knows they don’t get to make movies.

Penelope Cruz looks sublimely glamorous as she presents Best Picture, musical or comedy nominee Mrs. Henderson Presents. Her squeeze, Matthew McConaughey, introduces Best Foreign Language film. Kung Fu Hustle should win, but I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that Paradise Now wins it. It does. Yep. I know how the game works. But Kung Fu Hustle was the most brilliantly inventive film to come out of any country in 2005. It showed us that CGI effects now allow live-action filmmakers to be as diabolically inventive as Chuck Jones.

X.
Catherine Deneuve introduces A History of Violence, which should be nominated in the Comedy category. Why am I the only critic in America who understands that this picture is a comedy?

Best Original Score, which is a bathroom break category. I’m guessing Brokeback takes this one too— but John Williams gets his 10,000th award. Then it’s Mariah Carrey, who takes the Golden Globe award for Biggest Beefsteak Tomatoes. Hope Mel Brooks wins for best song. Nope, it’s Brokeback. The gay-shepherd juggernaut continues. It does give one hope that Brokeback is playing well in the red states. Maybe the Falwell crowd doesn’t have us licked yet.

Time for the Anthony Hopkins celebrity butt-kiss-a-thon. I remember a few years ago, Kirk Douglas was honored with the Thalberg award at the Oscars. The poor man had just suffered a terrible stroke. There he was on stage, a shell of his former self, forced to watch film clips of himself as a vibrant young man, and I thought, could anything be more depressing? As Kurt Vonnegut’s Kilgore Trout said when he finally met his creator in Breakfast of Champions: “Make me young!”

What the fuck is going on with Gwyneth Paltrow’s gown? Little Bo Peep called, she wants her dress back… Anthony Hopkins has had a fantastic career— although he edged painfully close to De Niro-style career suicide with that Chris Rock picture. And Silence of the Lambs really was the best picture of 1991. Speech time… he should launch into a Hitler-esque tirade. Instead, he’s putting us to sleep. Man, I remember when the Golden Globes used to poor stiff drinks and get everyone fucked up. Now it seems like they’re serving iced tea in those glasses.

XI.
Mandy Moore tees up The Squid and the Whale… who woulda thought that she’d be the one to escape the teen idol ghetto?

Clint! Best director: Woody Allen, George Clooney, Peter Jackson, Ang Lee, Fernando Meirelles, Spielberg. Ang Lee will win… yep. Lee is a class act, though, and he deserves the recognition. My favorite Lee picture is one that no one ever mentions— Ride with the Devil, the Civil War opus with Toby Maguire. It’s an awesome recreation of the guerrilla war that raged in Kansas and Missouri while Lee and McLellan were duking it out in Virginia. Also features the acting debut of former alterna-queen Jewel, who if memory serves flashes a breast. Put it in your Netflix queue if you haven’t had the pleasure.

Oh crap, here comes Big-Head Travolta. Best actor in a comedy: Pierce Bronson, Jeff Daniels, Johnny Depp, Nathan Lane, Cillian Murphy, Joaquin Phoenix. Phoenix takes it— let’s hope for a freak-out! He doesn’t appear to be drunk or stoned; that’s too bad. What a depressingly average speech. Sigh… somebody needs to spike the Evian with LSD.

XII.
Tim McGraw needs cue-card help; he may in fact be drunk. Now here comes Squinty Girl to hand out best musical or comedy… Mrs. Henderson Presents, Pride and Prejudice, The Producers, The Squid and the Whale, Walk the Line. Gotta be WTL… woo-hoo! Johnny and June are dancing a jig in Heaven. It’s not a classic, you understand, but it’s still a pretty damn good love story and it deserves a nod here—after all, it’s gonna be a Brokeback hoedown at the Oscars. Everything else will be forgotten.

Time for the TV awards… ho hum. Let’s hope Lost takes best drama. Woo-hoo! It’s the only TV show I watch, so of course I’m happy to have my tastes confirmed.

XIII.
Quaid on Brokeback… I gotta say, I’m glad Ledger hooked up with Williams on that film. She’s a cutie. Leo on best actress: Huffman, Bello, Theron, Ziang, Paltrow. Goes to… the chick with the dick. Looks like one of the Housewives isn’t so desperate anymore.

Hillary Swank on best actor: Crowe, Hoffman, Howard, Ledger, Strathairn. Rooting for Hoffman, but I bet Ledger gets it. No! Hoffman! Sweet. The Pudgy One gets his due. The guy has been brilliant for so long and in so many different ways that he’s spent a lifetime getting overlooked. Hope this puts him in position to upset Ledger for the Oscar. Ledger is great, don’t get me wrong… but this is Hoffman’s time. Of course, I thought last year was Giamatti’s time, and Foxx snatched his statue away. Still too short and tame a speech… the Globes are becoming as dull as the Oscars ever were. More liquor!

Denzel with the Big Prize: Brokeback, Constant Gardener, Good Night, History, Match Point. Brokeback it is— yawn. Every time I hear those laconic guitar chords, I want to nod off.

There it is… the first attempt by Mr. and Mrs. Fabulous to blog our way though an entire awards ceremony. If you made it this far, then you have our sympathies. Of course, reading about the Golden Globes takes a hell of a lot less time than actually watching them… so maybe we’re the ones who need the sympathy.

Movie Review: Tristan & Isolde

2006-01-18T22:27:00.000-05:00

Way back in 1991, when there was a Bush in the White House and we were at war with Iraq, two competing Robin Hood movies made their respective debuts. In this corner we had Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner as the guy in tights, Morgan Freeman as his anachronistic Moorish sidekick and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Maid Marion. In that corner we had a little-noticed British film called simply Robin Hood, which was shown theatrically in the U.K. but only on television in the U.S., and which starred career B-movie actor Patrick Bergin and a young Uma Thurman. Reynolds’s version was a ridiculously overwrought star vehicle, one of the most laugh-out-loud clunkers of the 1990’s, with a script written by a couple of hack producers that can charitably be described as awful, and copious scenes of Costner swaggering around like John Wayne in The Conqueror. That Costner’s film was a box office hit tells us that today’s movie audiences haven’t gotten any dumber.

Read the full review.

Movie Review: Brokeback Mountain

2006-01-12T21:55:00.000-05:00

Mrs. Fabulous and I went to see Coldplay last summer. Now I wouldn’t call myself a Coldplay fan, actually. I find them too precious by half. They’re the musical equivalent of one of those massage chairs you pay to sit in at your local shopping mall— vaguely soothing, but mechanical and lacking soul. Still, given the woeful state of pop music today, they’re fucking Pink Floyd compared to what else is out there. So what are you gonna do? Besides, they’re one of the few bands my wife and I can agree to spend money on.

Read the full review.

Movie Review: King Kong

2005-12-31T16:51:00.000-05:00

Hollywood needs Peter Jackson. In an era in which box office revenues are drying up faster than the world’s oil supplies, in which one after another of 2005’s supposed studio tent poles collapsed in a splintering sawdust cloud of dashed hopes, this rumpled, barefoot, recently-svelte Kiwi seems to be the only director working today— with the possible exception of Spiderman’s Sam Raimi and the still-kicking Steven Spielberg— who knows how to leverage big studio money and digital special effects to create idiosyncratic, personality-driven films that connect with today’s increasingly jaded and distracted audiences. If Peter Jackson can’t save Hollywood, no one can.

Read the full review.

Atlanta after dark

2005-10-27T23:52:00.000-04:00

Was in Atlanta for work last week, which means it took me a hell of a long time to get a new review up. But far be it from me to keep you from another dose of my sparkling prose, so I hope you didn't miss me too much.

But first a word about Atlanta. Mrs. Fabulous went with me on the trip, and because she has family and friends there, I've gotten to know the place better over the past few years. As much as it pains this Yankee Blue-stater to admit it, I've grown kinda fond of it. I've learned the difference between downtown, Midtown and Buckhead; I've had Tapas at Fuego and dinner at the City Grill; and although I haven't been to the Fox Theater yet, I've seen it and will get their soon-- I just missed a show by the String Cheese Incident earlier this month. Every time we head down, Mrs. Fabulous tries to show me another piece of the city.

This time we saw the world-famous Cyclorama that depicts the Battle of Atlanta in the Civil War in the form of a 360-degree, 30-foot tall painting with accompanying diorama. I'm a Civil War buff, and let me tell you that it was pretty spectacular. The after-party for the world premiere of Gone With the Wind was held at the Cyclorama in 1939, and Clark Gable himself is immortalized in the form of a dead Confederate soldier in the diorama. There are movie connections everywhere.

But the best part of the trip was the Clairmont Lounge. If you're an Atlantan, then you know whereof I speak. Mrs. Fabulous had partied here on many an evening, and was determined to get me there on this trip. Billed as the strip club for people who hate strip clubs, the Clairmont is located in the basement of the Clairmont Hotel on Ponce de Leon. It's no bigger than a breadbox. The featured beer is Pabst Blue Ribbon. Its main attraction is Blondie, the obese stripper who crushes beer cans between her size 36-FF tits. The rumor is that she once sent a man to the hospital with a neck injury after whacking him upside the head with one these giant beefsteak tomatoes. The place is supposed to be fun and kitzchy rather than depressing and skanky, like most strip clubs. College kids go to drink and hook up and couples go to take a walk on the wild side.

Unfortunately, we went on a Monday night, which is apparently regulars night. When we got there, we saw about five middle-aged men hunched around the bar and about the same number of scantily-dressed redneck chicks. On the stage behind the bar was a Cher lookalike (scary-old-Botox Cher, mind you, not hot-young-"Cherokee Woman"-Gene-Simmons-plaything Cher) grinding to some shitty song on the jukebox. We got our PBRs from the bartender, a friendly enough 50-something woman who had sniffed enough glue to build a scale model of an aircraft carrier. Before we could pop the tops on our beers, Cher had popped both her top and bottom, and stood revealed in all her glory. The collected barflies were less than thrilled, though one guy gave her a dollar to stuff into her garter.

"Come on, I made two dollars all night!" Cher said. "I gotta buy groceries. I can't even buy a gallon of milk."

I looked at Mrs. Fabulous. What the hell? I pulled out two bucks and handed them to Cher.

"Great, now I can buy a stick of butter!" said Cher.

Mrs. Fabulous was ready to bolt then and there. But dammit, we had made a special trip. We were duty bound to see this moment of Zen through to enlightenment. So we stayed for a few hours. We saw hairy lesbians, pudgy Goth chicks and tatooed biker girls all bump and grind. It was the first time my wife and I had been in the same room together with other naked women, and it was odd, to say the least. They must have thought we were there to pick up one of the strippers to take home with us. Not that there's anything wrong with it-- it just ain't our bag, man.

At one point we befriended a buxom young woman, pretty but with man-shoulders. Her dillema: she had two men on the hook, and couldn't choose between the tatoo artist or the "executive at a major international corporation" who met her at the Clairmont.

"Which one wants you to quit working here?" asked Mrs. Fabulous.

"The tatoo guy," Man-Shoulders answered. "He's sweet. He likes to cook for me."

My wife and I both agreed that she should dump the executive and go for the sweet tatoo artist who wanted her to quit stripping. A few moments later, Man-Shoulders was up on the stage twirling her panties in the air. She actually had the best moves up there. Let's just say she seemed to enjoy her work.

We tipped two bucks per stripper and got kisses on the cheek from each of the girls after their set. It was touching, in a way. Given that we were the big spenders that night, I took their gratitude as sincere.

So Mrs. Fabulous and I bonded in a new way that night; while we aren't planning a trip to Scores any time soon, it's nice to know we can have a good time together looking at naked chicks.

Quickie: Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit

2005-10-14T08:03:00.000-04:00

In Schindler's List, Ben Kingsley's Itzhak Stern introduces the concept of "absolute good. "This list... is an absolute good," Stern says. "The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf."

Now I'm not about to insult or demean Schindler's Jews by comparing their plight to an animated film about giant were-bunnies. But I do mean to suggest that Wallance & Gromit, in their inimitable plasticine ways, are an absolute good. In three short films and now their first feature, the cheese-loving inventor Wallace and his owner, the Chaplinesque mouthless dog Gromit, posit a universe in which no idea is too outlandish to be tried, vegetables and cheese are prized above gold and rubies and no problem is too great to be surmounted with a combination of ingenuity, tenacity and elbow grease. I'd like to live in Wallace & Gromit's world. It's a far gentler, nobler and loving world than this one-- that's for sure.

Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit is everything you could possibly hope for in a Wallace & Gromit adventure. What makes Nick Park's creations so enjoyable to watch on the big screen is how cinematic they are. They're lit, blocked and shot with all the care of the best live-action directors. Loving attention is paid to the characters. The plot is worked over with all the pizzaz of the best Pixar releases. I loved every ever-lovin' minute of this picture. Its theme and utter brilliance can be summed up in the closing credits sequence, in which a series of perplexed bunnies twirls, rotates and pirouettes in glorious free-fall. The charm and giddy adventurousness of this sequence, not to mention the utter delight it demonstrates in God's creation, sums up everything that Aardman Animation wants to say about life on Earth. If you don't get it, then I feel sorry for you.

Movie Review: A History of Violence

2005-10-13T07:58:00.000-04:00

If you look closely enough at David Cronenberg’s films, you’ll find that they’re all— every dad-blamed one of them, from the head-exploding yucks of his 1981 breakthrough film Scanners to his 2002 Ralph Fiennes mumble-fest Spider— exquisitely dry comedies. Filtered through the prism of his work, Cronenberg has morphed from pigeonholed horror director to cult bio-horror madman to respected indie auteur. Critics bow and scrape before him and examine his films the way a pagan priest examines the entrails of a goat, searching for signs and portents as they try to divine the Truth behind his art. But what they’re not doing is laughing— and they should be, because Cronenberg’s is the most consistently brilliant body of comic work out there.

Read the full review.

Movie Review: Corpse Bride

2005-10-04T23:43:00.000-04:00

How do I begin to describe the unnatural love I feel for The Nightmare Before Christmas? From the moment I saw the Tim Burton-inspired, Henry Selick-directed, Danny Elfman-scored stop-motion Gothic extravaganza, I fell hard and fast. My wife and I bonded over it instantly; I got her a set of Nightmare collectible figures on our first Christmas together. We watch it together every November— singing “This is Halloween” to each other and trading lines like Did anybody remember to dredge the lake? and Interesting reaction! into the wee hours and cracking ourselves up every time.

Read the full review.

The Wonder Years

2005-09-23T08:20:00.000-04:00

Man, I am absolutely obsessing over Stevie Wonder. I'm not talking about the 80's Stevie-- the cheesy Ebony-and-Ivory, I-Just-Called-to-Say-Love-You, make-you-throw up-in-your-mouth-a-little Stevie. I'm talking about the stone-cold Superfunk Master Stevie from the 1970s. The Innervisions, Talking Book, Songs in the Key of Life Stevie, the one-man band who ruled the Funk, Pop and R&B landscapes simultaneously. No one could plug into the Primal Groove like Stevie in his prime. I've been playing the shit out of Stevie recently, and I'm finding shades and emotion and connection in his music like I never have. I've always been a marginal fan; I can't hear "Signed Sealed Delivered" without bursting into a chaotic flurry of white-man dance fever. But I'm grooving to his stuff in an entirely new way. I don't know if it's a lifestage thing or what the fuck is going on, but I love his stuff so much that I get verklempt just thinking about it.

Even back in the day, Stevie could sometimes overdo it. All of the classic albums have at least one cut on them that makes you cringe. But when Stevie erred, he erred by aiming too high. And when he channels the groove in "Sir Duke" or "HIgher Ground" or "Superstition," man, he will knock you on your ass.

You whippersnappers who are too young to have ever actually placed a record on a turntable will have no idea what I'm talking about. Your only connection to Stevie is that Pat Boone funk served up by wankers like Maroon 5. Do yourself a favor and connect with this shit immediately. I know I sound like a WWII-generation old coot arguing that none of this rock 'n roll hooey can touch Glenn Miller or Sinatra. But honestly, no popular music being made today can touch Stevie. You young cats are living through the musical Dark Ages.

If you want to experience the joy that is Stevie, put on the headphones and stream some of this shit:

Innervisions
Songs in the Key of Life
Talking Book

Mr. Fabulous says it'll blow your mind.

Movie review: Junebug

2005-09-22T21:11:00.000-04:00

Ten years ago, I went to my grandmother’s funeral in Southwestern Ohio. My father was the youngest of nine children, which means that both he and I have cousins old enough to be our parents, and that I’m part of an extended family of which I have met maybe 10 percent. During the final service at the gravesite, I remember looking around at the motley collection of mouth-breathers, rednecks, slack-jaws and hill-williams that made up my family. Being of Scotch-Irish descent, I thought to myself, “You know, if we were back in the old country centuries ago, these people would be my clan.” The thought gave me the shivers.

Read the full review.

Update from Baton Rouge

2005-09-02T07:42:00.000-04:00

Here's an e-mail we received from Mrs. Fabulous's brother, who lives in Baton Rouge. It may not surprise you to learn that Baton Rouge has overnight become the largest city in Louisiana.

---
I think Alan's house was spared from the storm, but who knows what the looters are doing. There could be some guys riding around in a one-mile-square area driving his mint condition 356. His camp is probably toast, because the eye went right over Lake Borgne. I had a lot of good memories there.

In all the doomsday scenarios I've heard, I never thought about where do 1.4 million people go when their homes are destroyed? Well, 100,000 take up residence in the next biggest city, which happens to be Baton Rouge.

Living a half mile from the interstate doesn't help either. They have people parking their cars in the middle of O'Neal Lane to get something at the Burger King. Guess the rest of us in cars have nothing better to do than wait on someone getting a burger. Gas lines are blocks long and the Wal-Mart looks like a store in the former Soviet Union,--not much on the shelves. The kids are off for a week, and they're talking about putting all the displaced kids from New Orleans into our school system. It was already overcrowded and in bad shape.

I work downtown, and they're housing 5,000 refugees at the Centroplex. Since last night the Chevron and Frost Top were robbed and today there was a carjacking at the courthouse and someone got shot. New Orleans had the highest per capita murder rate in the country. My building is currently in a lockdown where no non-state employees are allowed in the building. I guess Katrina will spread the wealth.

My friend Barry's nephew brought his boat down to the flooded area to pull people from the rooftops. He came across one group asking if they had a camera in the boat. They decided to wait on the boat with the camera crew to come by so they'd be on TV. They had been on the rooftop for two days. Glad to see someone has their priorities.
---

Hopefully I'll be getting back to trivial movie stuff soon. But right now my heart just isn't in it.

The downward spiral

2005-09-01T18:18:00.000-04:00

This is one of the latest reports from CNN.com:

***
'A scene of anarchy'
Editor's Note: CNN correspondents report back on what they are seeing in New Orleans and other Gulf Coast communities hit by Hurricane Katrina.

Posted: 10:02 a.m. ETCNN's Jim Spellman in New Orleans, Louisiana

I don't think I really have the vocabulary for this situation.

We just heard a couple of gunshots go off. There's a building smoldering a block away. People are picking through whatever is left in the stores right now. They are walking the streets because they have nowhere else to go.

Right now, I'm a few blocks away from the New Orleans Convention Center area. We drove through there earlier, and it was unbelievable. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people spent the night sleeping on the street, on the sidewalk, on the median.
The Convention Center is a place that people were told to go to because it would be safe. In fact, it is a scene of anarchy.

There is absolutely nobody in control. There is no National Guard, no police, no information to be had.

The Convention Center is next to the Mississippi River. Many people who are sleeping there feel that a boat is going to come and get them. Or they think a bus is going to come. But no buses have come. No boats have come. They think water is going come. No water has come. And they have no food.

As we drove by, people screamed out to us -- "Do you have water? Do you have food? Do you have any information for us?"

We had none of those.

Probably the most disturbing thing is that people at the Convention Center are starting to pass away and there is simply nothing to do with their bodies. There is nowhere to put them. There is no one who can do anything with them. This is making everybody very, very upset.
***
Meanwhile, this is what our President was doing yesterday, as the situation in New Orleans was rapidly devolving into murderous chaos:

Draw your own conclusions.

Memories of the Big Easy

2005-08-31T19:15:00.000-04:00

I'm in mourning for New Orleans.

I haven't spent a lot of time in the Big Easy-- I still haven't made it to Mardis Gras, for one thing-- but I have nothing but good memories about the times I've dwelt there.

The first time the future Mrs. Meauxjeaux Fabulous and I gambled together was at the Harrah's Casino in New Orleans. I sat down at the blackjack table (I know, but they didn't have a poker room back then) and was up about $100 in short order. Meaux sat down next to me and proceeded to get her clock cleaned. That night established the precedent-- which holds true to this day-- that only one of us can win at the blackjack table at a time. Not once have we both finished a winning session on the same night.

That same trip saw us eating Oyster and Shrimp Po' Boys at a hole-in-the-wall dive; carrying our open containers of alcohol around Jackson Square; wiggling our way in and out of galleries during a free art show, at one point staring at a motionless naked woman in a cage and being unable to decide if the figure was a real woman or a mannequin; swilling Hurricanes (now a sadly misnamed drink) at Pat O'Brien's.

We also took our first cruise out of New Orleans. We cruised the Western Caribbean on the Carnival Inspiration, which sailed out of New Orleans harbor. We departed about 7pm for the six-hour journey down the Mighty Mississippi to the Gulf, and got to watch the sun set while the Big Easy slowly dwindled in the distance. After dark, we stood out on the observation deck while the black river and shadow-draped shorelines rolled by us. We'd see what looked like a major metropolitan city, dazzling the night sky with its thousands of lights; as we got closer, we'd realize that it was actually an oil refinery. At about 1am, it was too dark to see anything with the new moon overhead. But when we finally left the confines of the Mississippi and hit the Gulf of Mexico, we could feel the change in the air nonetheless. It was the most impossibly romantic moment I'd ever experienced.

And then there's the architecture, which is-- was-- my personal favorite aspect of the New Orleans experience. I'm not just talking about the flashy scene around Jackson Square, although that's cool enough. I'm talking about the afternoons we spent just driving around the residential quarters of the city, our jaws agape at the spectacular old homes with their gamboled roofs, turrets, balconies and ivy-strangled columns. What fabulous Tennessee Williams-inspired lives these folks must lead, I remember thinking.

New Orleans is the closest we Americans can come to visiting a foreign city without leaving the continental US. There's something about the combination of the architecture, the food, the liquor, the music, the humidity and the filth that made spending time in New Orleans like spending the night with a high-class hooker. Yeah, you had to pay her for her time. But man, what I time you had.

And now she's gone. I have no doubt that New Orleans will be rebuilt, in some fashion. But all those fantastic old homes I loved are gone now, or soon will be. What's left of the city will become a theme park for tourists who want to experience a sanitized version of the culture without wallowing in the seediness that makes it authentic. What New Orleans was will never return. She needs to be mourned properly, with music and booze and cigarettes.

Say a prayer for the Big Easy. May she rest in peace.

Surrender Dorothy

2005-08-26T07:23:00.000-04:00

This has been all over the internet, so I'm not exactly breaking any news here. But check out these adorable pictures of little Tom Cruise all dolled up, courtesy of the British tabloid The Sun:

Two things strike me about these pictures: One, little Tommy looks extaordinarily happy to be wearing a dress. Look at that beaming little smile! Two, little Tommy actually makes a cute little girl.

Tom, Tom. I hope you realize that you brought this on yourself.

Movie Meth and Star Trek perverts

2005-08-19T07:36:00.000-04:00

All of us movie fans have a small list of films that, if we happen upon them while channel-surfing digital cable, absolutely must watch to the end, whether the movie is ten minutes or an hour in. It's like rediscovering your crystal meth addiction after six months off. Below are my personal top five instances of Movie Meth. You may decide that I harbor secret gay love for either Patrick Swayze or Keanu Reeves, since I can't keep my eyes off of either of them:

1) Road House: One of the best bad movies ever made, featuring Swayze as a Zen philosopher/bouncer who spouts such brilliant bon mots as, "Pain don't hurt."

2) The Devil's Advocate: Al Pacino and Reeves star as Satan and his son, respectively. Naturally, they're both attorneys. Later remade by Adam Sandler as Little Nicky.

3) Point Break: Swayze as the Zen philosopher/surfer/bank robber and Reeves as the FBI agent determined to hunt him down. The most touching gay love story since Top Gun.

4) Raising Arizona: Can't help it. I know ever line in the movie by heart, but I still lose it every time I hear Holly Hunter say, "Mind his little fontanelle."

5) The Godfather: Part one only please. Part II is great, but doesn't have the mythic forward momentum of the original. Part III is the Fredo to its better older brothers.

Also, found this mention in Slate magazine about the connection between Star Trek fans and pedophelia. As a former Trekkie myself, I couldn't help but laugh.

---

In May, Yale cyberlaw expert Ernest Miller noticed an astonishing tidbit in a Los Angeles Times story on the Toronto police Sex Crimes Unit's pursuit of pedophiles:

All but one of the [over 100] offenders they have arrested in the last four years was a hard-core Trekkie.

Miller was skeptical but the cops basically stood by their story--at the least, a "majority of those arrested show 'at least a passing interest in Star Trek, if not a strong interest.'" Not just an interest in science fiction generally, mind you. But Star Trek.

The conventional explanation for this seemingly bizarre correlation was that pedophiles must simply be trying to use an interest in Star Trek as a device to lure their prey. But Ellen Ladowsky, an L.A. therapist, thinks there actually is something inherent in the show itself that makes it "irresistible to perverts.". She lays out her case in HuffPost. Sample:

[W]hen it comes to relationships off the ship, Captain Kirk displays a truly astonishing emotional poverty. He goes from planet to planet, having trysts with an assortment of nubile women, but never forms any real attachments. ... [snip] ...There's a pervasive message that women are toxic. In an episode called Cat's Paw, there is an evil sorceress who separates the crew from each other and from the starship. The perpetually indignant Dr. McCoy cautions Kirk, "Don't let her touch your wand Jim, or you'll lose all your power!["] On the very rare occasions where Kirk seems to find love, his partners quickly die off. After one of his loves has croaked, Kirk admonishes Spock "Love, you're better off without it."

Ladowsky argues pedophiles naturally identify with the crew's "utopian interracial and interplanetary world" as a model for "denial of the difference between the sexes and the difference between the generations." And then there are the monsters:

[I]f the pedophiles are identifying with the crew members, who do the monsters represent? Possibly aspects of the pedophile's mind that are split off because they are unthinkable, and projected into someone else. On the Enterprise, aggressive impulses aren't battling it out with libidinal ones as they are here on earth. In the Star Trek universe, every "bad" impulse is attributed to an external force. When it comes to sex, for example, it's always an outside influence that takes possession of the crew's minds and bodies, causing them to behave in erotically driven ways. Child molesters have a similar mechanism at work. They deny having any sexual impulses themselves; they frequently claim that it was the children who seduced them.

Ladowsky only discusses the original Star Trek series, not the Next Generation and subsequent follow-ups. But her post certainly seems a big step in the direction of an actual explanation. Give her tenure!

--

Off to see The 40 Year-Old Virgin this weekend. TGIF!

Movie Review: The Devil's Rejects

2005-08-17T00:52:00.000-04:00

I’m not a Rob Zombie fan, per se, but I am an admirer. Zombie (aka Robert Cummings) is a great American success story. A self-made renaissance man who began his career as a musician fronting the 90’s thrash-metal outfit White Zombie (named after a Bela Lugosi film, naturally), he transformed himself into a living comic book character— a dreadlocked undead superhero as envisioned by Boris Vallejo with a bevy of big-titted babes at his feet and a guitar at his side. Zombie wasn’t just the bandleader; he also drew the covers for his CDs, directed the videos, wrote the complementary comic books and even designed his own tattoos, which he wears. He’s performed with childhood heroes Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne. His music was never original or compelling, just loud and omnipresent, which makes him living proof that talent is the least essential ingredient of success. What really counts is moxie, a little luck and a lot of good old-fashioned elbow grease.

Read the full review.

Movie Review: The Island

2005-08-16T07:59:00.000-04:00

How fitting, then, that Michael Bay’s most artistically successful film— and remember that we’re grading on a curve here— is also his biggest bomb. The man who tortured us in his personal cinematic dungeon with such diabolical instruments as Armageddon, Bad Boys II and Pearl Harbor finally gets his comeuppance. No one could be happier than me. I’ve prayed for this moment for years, but my victory is a Pyrrhic one. I actually kind of liked this film, in the way you kind of like a really ugly dog who keeps breathing his stink-breath on you because he’s so happy to see you. I felt sorry for The Island. It’s no classic, but neither is it Pearl Harbor. At the very least, it deserves a pat on the head.

Read the full review.

Free to a good home

2005-07-29T08:09:00.000-04:00

A mama kitty in our neighborhood recently gave birth to some kittens. They're about six weeks old and looking for a good home. Here are some pictures:

RIP: James Doohan

2005-07-20T06:19:00.000-04:00

In not unexpected though nonetheless sad news, one of my boyhood heroes passed away today: James "Scotty" Doohan.

Link to CNN obituary

I won't get into what Star Trek meant to me as a kid. Like many things in my life that I've obsessed over to varying degrees-- movies, the Grateful Dead, Phish, Kate Winslet-- you either get Star Trek, or you don't. I long ago gave up watching the new stuff. Voyager, Enterprise and that ilk just made my feet itch and my underwear ride up. But my DNA is infused with the original series, and Scotty was far and away my favorite member of the Enterprise crew.

So in leiu of waxing philosophic, here's a little story about my personal encounter with James Doohan. This must have been in 1983 or so. Somewhere around the time between The Wrath of Kahn and The Voyage Home. My little preschool buddies and I learned that Doohan was going to be signing autographs at a local video store, so off we went.

Our moms drop us off at the store, and there we find a huge snaking line of geeks waiting to get in to see Scotty up close. We're looking at a two-hour wait. But hey, it's a nice day out, we have our sippy cups filled with apple juice, and besides, it's fucking Scotty, man. He's worth the wait.

So we get in line. We are entertained by a bagpipe player in full Starfleet uniform blowing out "Amazing Grace" to the delighted crowd. Hours go by. Finally, we are literally set to be the next group let into the store when the manager comes out and announces that the show's over-- Scotty is done for the day.

Crushing disappointment. But when the chorus of groans and boos reaches Doohan's ears inside the store, he springs into action. He steps outside. A mighty cheer goes up. We all go weak in the knees. It's fucking Scotty, man! Doohan spends a good fifteen more minutes outside with us, posing for pictures and chatting with the fans before a limo pulls up to take him back to his shuttlecraft-- guess the transporter was on the blink that day. We trudged away, happy to have spent some time in the presence of Mr. Doohan.

There's no moral to this story other than James Doohan seemed like a righteous cat to me. Course, I was only four years old, so I was easily impressed.

I wish I had a picture of that day. If any of you old droogs reading this post have a picture, send it to me and I'll post it.

James Doohan: rocking the comb-over since 1966:

Rest in peace, Scotty.

Walk the Line

2005-07-13T23:55:00.000-04:00

Here's my new favorite movie poster. I'm thinking of buying a copy for my office.

It's a teaser poster for Walk the Line, the new Johnny Cash biopic due this fall and starring Joaquin Phoenix as the Man in Black and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter-Cash. What I love about this poster is how powerfully it sums up Cash's life and career-- about to walk into the fires of Hell, but looking back at a chance for salvation. Phoenix looks nothing like Cash, of course, but his image in this poster perfectly captures Cash's larger-than-life persona. The movie can always turn out to be a dud, but this poster shows that the marketing guys at Fox know what they're doing.

Here's my favorite picture of the man himself:

Movie review: Dark Water

2005-07-11T23:58:00.000-04:00

Until Hollywood started remaking Japanese horror films, I never considered the subconscious dread that we all feel when we think about plumbing. Which is not very often; unless a pipe breaks or the toilet backs up, most of us are content to not know what goes on behind the walls of our houses and apartments. But unless you’re a plumber, plumbing is inherently mysterious and a little spooky. We send food, water, grease, excrement and God knows what else down our pipes, and we’re never sure what happens to it, or what might come back up through those moist portals to the netherworld. For all we know, the pipes might lead straight to Hell.

Read the full review.

We are all Londoners now

2005-07-07T22:39:00.000-04:00

My wife Meaux and I were in London just two weeks ago. We were only there for a day, which was much too short a time to indulge in the pleasures of that fair city. We stayed at the Capital Hotel in Knightsbridge, just down the street from Harrod's. With only a day to kill, we ordered a few items from the appetizer menu: we took a walk around the perimeter of Hyde Park, where we saw the stage for Live8 being raised; we spent a few hours in the National Gallery, where we saw enough paintings of Christ on the Cross to last us a lifetime, but also saw dozens of exquisite portraits from Rembrandt and the other Dutch masters; had a pint at a gay bar in Picadilly; and had dinner at the Capital Hotel restaurant, where we were treated like royalty.

We rode the Tube twice that day. The next morning, we took the Gatwick Express from Victoria Station. You see, when you visit London, you have little choice but to use public transportation. There's simply no other way to get around, unless you want to cab it everywhere. Which I may do from now on.

The London bombings today hit home for me. It's not just because we were just there, and that there's no reason other than timing that we weren't on one of those subway cars or two of the 37 confirmed dead. I have a deep and abiding love for London, you see. I love New York, don't get me wrong. But London was the first world-class city I ever visited outside of my home town. I spend the summer there in college: my best buddy John and I living on Kensington Church Street, absorbing the city into our pores, spending the afternoons tracing Mrs. Dalloway's path through the city, visiting Keates' house, trying to find Muswell Hill because the Kinks wrote a song about it. We were Londoners, at least for that summer.

Later, I got to spend some time in New York, and fell in love with that crazy fucking town as well. But you never forget your first love.

So I take the attacks personally. I'm not going to get all political on you here. Whether you thought invading Iraq was essential to the War on Terror, or you don't, is immaterial. What we saw today was an act of pure, distilled, extra-virgin Evil.

But my city can take it. This may have been the worst attack on British soil since World War II, but Londoners survived the Blitz, and they will survive this. I saw a picture today which pretty much sums it up for me:

God save the Queen.

Movie Review: War of the Worlds

2005-07-03T15:52:00.000-04:00

How much did I dig War of the Worlds? I've seen it twice already. Saw it on opening night, by myself, while my wife was out gallivanting with the girls; saw it again the next night, with the wife at my side. That's the first time this year I've seen a picture twice in the theater. I sure as hell wasn't interested in seeing Revenge of the Sith a second time; the moment I saw Darth Vader cavorting with M&Ms on TV, I was done with George Lucas. I didn't even see Batman Begins twice, and I dug that movie immensely. Haven't felt the urge to double-dip, actually, since Return of the King.

Read the full review.