Lulu's Movie Reviews 6.30.06

Sorry about yesterday's post. It would be too intimidating and deflating to others if I was brilliant ALL the time.

I watched "Rumor Has It..." last night. The cast was good--Jennifer Aniston, Mark Ruffalo, Shirley McClaine (sp?), and even Kevin Costner. The story was good--Pasadena girl finds out that her family is The Robinsons of The Graduate fame.

But it just did not work. It's odd when that happens to movies. What went wrong? When all the stars go to the premiere to see how the director pieced it all together, do they sit there and think "This just did not work."? It's a Rob Reiner movie, and he's usually pretty good about these lite romanomedies: American President, When Harry Met Sally, Sure Thing, Princess Bride. But he's gone wrong, too: EdTV, First Wives Club, Sleepless in Seattle. This movie fits with the latter group: I'll give it a D/D-.

Still, Rob Reiner himself gets an A+ from me for directing This is Spinal Tap. Top 5, baby, top 5.

And it's Two-For-One day here at the Fetish! Yes, that's right! TWO movie reviews for ONE click! This will hurt my count, to be sure, and I may never ever catch up with Burb's massive number, but I try to give my dear readers more for their effort. One day, my plan will take off.

The movie--documentary, really--is called Reel Paradise. I had high hopes for it. It's about a family who takes off to Fiji for a year, opens up the existing movie theater, and shows free movies to the locals. Having just finished a book about Captain Cook by a writer who went pretty much everywhere Cook went in order to guage his impact (bad, but inevitable, probably), I was looking forward to seeing some footage of one South Sea island that I had just read about.

Here's the problem. The family was obnoxious. The dad, John Pierson, is an independent film producer/guru who helped Spike Lee get started (She's Gotta Have It) and even helped produce several movies that film savvy readers will know: The Blair Witch Project, Chasing Amy, Crumb, Clerks, Slacker (woo hoo!), and Roger & Me. The mom was sweet, but kind of a doormat; the 16 year-old daughter was a prig who would spend some time in the brig if she was my daughter. The 13-year old boy was all right, I suppose. Still, as a whole, pretty obnoxious. And when I find nothing redeeming about the stars, I rarely like the movie. This comment has sparked controversy in the past among my lunchmates. Allow me to explain. Take Linda Fiorentino's character in The Last Seduction. There was nothing redeeming about her. EXCEPT that she was one of the best villains I've ever seen in the arts, completely without remorse, and did not make the big nicey turnaround that so many others fall victim to. This family did not have that kind of charisma.

Like Born Rich, the movie missed opportunities. I think. There was too much focus on the family's little drama--their computer got stolen and oh, woah, they just didn't know who to trust. There might have been more history of the islanders, their culture, and the interaction of cultures (though there was some of that).

The best thing about the film was the islander's reactions to the American movies. They went nuts for Queen Latifah's performance in Bringing Down the House. If you can find something funny about that movie, God love you. Their reactions were genuine and exuberant. When traveling American film students aired out their tired film school offerings, 200+ Fijians sat stone-faced . . . then left. Hilarious, but a little sad for the in-attendance film students!

Grade? D

'Til next time . . . keep your eyes on the screen and your hands in the bucket.

Which Way Does the Wind Blow?

It blows for thee.

I have no idea what I'm saying. Yesterday there was a big, dramatic, buzzard-like flap about a work thing and my boss is the fall guy. Deserved? Yes. But I still felt the need to give him a heads-up about it. I still don't know why.

My little family is heading out tomorrow on a one-week relative visiting extravaganza. Mixed feelings. I'm still not feeling all that great about living in MO one day. I'd rather spend the time on our own, at the beach or in the forests. Still, it IS somewhat fun to see everyone (she admitted, begrudgingly), and it's even more fun to see everyone seeing my children.

This is a stream of consciousness mash of blog goodness? badness? so I'm trying to not pause, but to keep typing. And it's stupid. So I'll stop.

Hooray!

Silly Little Fairy

Unbeknownst to me prior to Saturday and this morning, there is an ad going 'round that is stirring up a lot of controversy. It's a Dodge ad wherein a fairy is flitting about a city, turning buildings into gingerbread houses and trains into choo-choos. When she tries to change the ultra-masculine Dodge somethin'-or-other compact into a cute little buggy? a pumpkin carriage?, she fails. In her increasing frustration to change it, she flies into a building a slumps to the sidewalk. A passing ruffian in black walking a black Doberman says, "Silly little fairy." She zaps him, and he turns into a preppy looking sissy boy walking Poodles. Ha HA!

I hadn't seen this ad. My friend Ted, "who just happens to be" gay (I'm referring to George Carlin's routine on the absurdity of referring to a person's race/sexual orientation/etc. by saying "who just happens to be _____"), described it to me and said it was really funny.

You can see for yourself through this disparaging-of-the-ad article: http://www.adage.com/columns/article?article_id=108621

So I watched it, and I could see how it could be interpreted in a number of ways. Personally, I'm not terribly offended by it. It's obvious (to me, y'all) that the "fairy" comment is, in fact, referring to gay people. The context makes that blatantly obvious and any viewer of any Dodge ad is well-aware that Dodge is all about appealing to REAL men--men who spray other men with hoses if they use their truck for something pussy like hauling sewing tables (as opposed to hauling pussy, which is completely admirable). And, truth be told, I think some of these ads are rather amusing, though slightly irritating in their complete and utter transparency, tranparency akin to ALL ads for razors, which ALWAYS end with a close-up of a guy's face being stroked and nuzzled by a gorgeous babe (read: You will get pussy if you are stubble-free and got stubble-free with the machoist razor in the world. A razor with so much technology that it actually launches itself into space when the 5 blades grow dull).

But the REAL story lies in the comments about the disparaging article about the ad that you can read on Advertising Age's web site (which I hope you can read without registering by following this link: http://www.adage.com/opinion?article_id=108621).

Most people called the author an obnoxiously PC faggot. In their zeal to decry the ridiculously PC nature of our society today (which I must be missing, for the most part), the hatred oozed. ALL those who interpreted the ad as obnoxious were 'ultra-sensitive homos' with no sense of humor. But how can they have a sense of humor when SO MANY people automatically assume that ONLY homosexuals would be offended by the ad?

I'm reminded of an episode of the British version of The Office when David Brent, the idiot boss, tells a racist joke and gets in trouble for it. He automatically assumes that the lone black guy in the office told on him and is surprised to find out that it was a white woman and that other white people were offended, too. He asks, "Well if [black guy] is OK with it, what's the problem?" To which the woman responds, "Why should only black people be offended by racism?" The people who thus assumed that only homosexuals would be offended. . . well, I could almost hear them through my computer screen, so happy to have this chance to put their prejudice into the world by lumping all homosexuals into one hyper-sensitive sissy camp as opposed to thinking that maybe, just maybe, there may be variety of opinion among the millions of people who just happen to be gay.

In this instance, the comments were far more offensive than anything Dodge could muster.

The funniest part? Ted told me the ad was for Toyota.

Forgive Me, Blogger, For I Have Sinned

It has been too damn long since my last blogpost.

I've been busy.

First . . . WORK.
Work, and my feelings about it, have consumed a lot of brain energy lately. I had a big fight with my boss a few weeks ago, wherein he questioned my competence to do this entire job based on two things:
1. I wholeheartedly disagreed with him regarding the merit of a competitor's book and with his attempt to downplay the comp's assets to the detriment of our reps.
2. I ordered too many books for a rep training. A victimless rookie mistake that was fixed with an apology and two dozen Krispy Kremes for the mail room guys.
As a result of this meeting of the mind and the moron, my whole "new attitude'' about work has been tossed out the window to die a bloody death among the heavily fertilized petunias and ornamental grasses. I'm ready to move on.

So I've been exploring options. One is too quit and stay home with my kids, freelancing, working for the rich, helping my grandmother stubbornly stay in the house she can't manage alone. This can only happen if two other things happen: Kevin needs to go back to work full time for a much higher salary, and we have to find health coverage. For Kevin to go back, he needs to talk to my dad, who wants him back, but who is trying to work out some sort of mysterious deal with his ultra-powerful funereal employer, and that is stalling the whole process. Kevin could work elsewhere, but the brothers who own that business need to talk to each other and, apparently, the logistics of that are overwhelming at this time. I can get cobra coverage through work for 18 months. For the low, low cost of $1,300 a month.

Another option is to go back to editorial. I've talked about this with my old manager, but it could be a political problem and, frankly, my salary is a problem. In the fucked up hierarchy of the corporate world, my pay bracket is one above the most senior editor in the joint (remember, though, that there is a wide overlap within each bracket. My own bracket spans $30,000. I am at the bottom of it.) Still, I would have to give up my bonus and not get raises forever, and I would still have to come into the office everyday. I can take the salary thing, but I hate coming into work. I'd rather hang in my quasi pajamas all day.

So . . . we hold.

Last night we sat down (at my gentle insistence) and started working up a plan. The plan involves going to Missouri and opening up our own monument company. To do that, we will need a lot of expensive equipment, a place to operate, a place to live. We will have to fix up and sell our current house. We will have to put some cash aside to live on, or else I will have to find a job for awhile (no teaching jobs--I already looked). We will have to pay for health insurance. I'm thinking about "catastrophic" coverage, where we pay out-of-pocket for all our regular exams and a high deductible for anything, yes, catastrophic.

Whew. There's more, but I'm spent. Wheels are in motion, but they are mired in mud so deep it makes Passchendaele look like a rollerblade track.