From the Department of Stuff I Mentioned Months Ago and Then Forgot to Follow Through On (DSIMMATFFTO), may I now present my new and improved photo gallery? It’s got a whole new interface (which I find much more aesthetically pleasing than the old one) and I’ve even reorganized and added some new sub-albums, so if you’ve ever been curious about what I or my world looks like, go have a look. The link over there in the sidebar has been updated, too…
I do most of my online reading these days through an RSS aggregator. For my readers who don’t live and breathe this stuff, I should explain that an aggregator is an online service that compiles the content of blogs and other websites together in a single place, so you don’t have to move from site to site to keep up to date on all the ones you like to follow. There are a number of aggregators out there on the InterWeb; personally, I like Bloglines.
However, one drawback to using an aggregator is that the interface doesn’t show you what the blogs you’re reading actually look like; all you get is the content. Which is why I got such a start this morning when I clicked on over to Wil Wheaton’s blog for the first time in six or eight months and discovered that he’s using the exact same stylesheet that I’m using here on Simple Tricks. In other words, our sites look more-or-less exactly the same! In fact, I thought at first that I’d somehow bounced back here, and that something had gone wrong with all my entry titles. It was very disconcerting.
Still, it’s kind of cool to learn that one of the better-known stars in the blogosphere firmament shares my excellent taste in decorating schemes. Bravo, Wil!
From a Time magazine review of the new Quentin Tarantino-Robert Rodriguez shlock-o-rama Grindhouse, here’s an observation that I found interesting:
You won’t find sex, or even the aura of sexuality, in films by the current generation of pop-referencing auteurs. They swarm all over the violence in 60s-70s grindhouse movies but are squeamish in showing the eroticism that once was crucial to the genre. The generation of “kids with beards,” as Billy Wilder called Francis Coppola, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Martin Scorsese, took their cues from a wide range of movie sources — Saturday-matinee serials, John Cassavetes improv dramas, European angst-athons — and if they got excessive, it was in kitsch and violence, not sex. Rodriguez got some puffs of grindhouse steam going in Sin City; but here, he and Tarantino are as puritanical as their predecessors. All bang-bang, no French kiss-kiss.
In both “features” of Grindhouse, the MISSING REEL card flashes as a sex scene has just begun. That’s a comment on the old days, but it also proves that when it comes to eroticism, of the true or even exploitation variety, these directors are such cowards. If they use sex at all, it is in the horror-film mode pioneered by Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Show a woman in a shower, then kill her. The impulse is both prurient and puritanical; they provide a brief voyeuristic pleasure, then feel obliged to punish the women, and the audience, and themselves.
This reminds me of something I noticed when I worked at the multiplex back in college: the viewers who squawked with moral outrage and demanded refunds at the briefest glimpse of a feminine nipple were usually the same folks who enthusiastically turned out on opening night for the latest action or horror bloodbaths. One family of regular patrons stands out in my mind; the numb-skulled parents thought it was peachy keen to take their five kids — who, as I recall, ranged in age from teen down to toddler — to Total Recall three or four times, but were appalled that their precious younglings’ eyes were exposed to the sexual content in The Fabulous Baker Boys. Both films were rated R and, in my opinion, were inappropriate for kids regardless of their respective particulars, simply because they dealt with grown-up subject matter. (Well, Baker Boys did, anyway, but Total Recall definitely wasn’t made with families in mind, regardless of its subject.) But these folks thought that Michael Ironside getting his arms ripped off (“See you at the pahty, Ricktah!”) was fine family entertainment while Michelle Pfeiffer’s boobage was the very embodiment of evil.
I was thinking then that there was something out of whack with the cultural values being expressed through our entertainment, the dichotomy of “immoral” sexual content versus “perfectly acceptable” violence, and that was almost 20 years ago. The equation has only gotten more lopsided since then; our theater screens are awash in gore and sadism, but I honestly can’t recall the last time I saw any nudity in a film… what is it about Americans that we prefer fake bloodshed over cinematic nookie? And does that make anyone else out there uneasy, or is it just me?
One of my co-workers just cracked me up with the following observation:
“It’s just like that movie with Russell Crowe that I didn’t watch.”
Yeah, it’s just like that, isn’t it?
The way I remember it, there was one summer when I didn’t think much about music at all, when I was just a wee lad content to listen to whatever Mom put on our gargantuan old hi-fi console, and then the very next year after that, I was a budding audiophile who obsessively followed the weekly Top Ten Countdown and toted around a transistor radio everywhere I went. The biggest song in the land that summer was “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield, and I was absolutely crazy about it.
Bob Clark, the director of one of my favorite holiday movies, A Christmas Story, was killed today in a car accident, along with his 22-year-old son Ariel. Their sedan was struck by a sport utility vehicle being driven by an unlicensed idiot who sustained only minor injuries. The idiot is expected to be booked on suspicion of driving under the influence and gross vehicular manslaughter. I hope they throw away the key.
The LA Times has the details of the accident and a brief obit here.
Boy, does this ever sound like a recipe for total fanboy embarassment: take an ex-boy-bander who’s gone a bit beefy with maturity, put him on a dippy reality-show dance-off with a bunch of other has-beens and B-listers, and let him do a routine set to that old disco-ized version of the main title from Star Wars, complete with a lightsaber prop. When I heard about this, I was prepared to hang my head in shame for ever liking a movie that could lead to this… and yet it turned out to be surprisingly entertaining, if not exactly cool:
No doubt it was the girl’s Leia-style metal bikini that salvaged the whole thing…
That episode of Boston Legal I mentioned a while back aired tonight, the one that was going to incorporate footage from a legal drama William Shatner did 50 years ago. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting — the episode used only three short vintage clips, and their usage was rather understated, with none of the “significant television event” atmosphere that usually permeates this sort of stunt. But it was nevertheless a very good episode. Writer-producer David E. Kelley dialed his trademark silliness way down for a tense hostage-crisis story that’s really about the way fathers continue to influence grown men long after dad has passed on. Shatner, who is of course known as a relentless chewer of scenery and whose character on this show, Denny Crane, is something of a nutcase, delivered a subtle performance that I think ranks among the very best work he’s ever done. And the final scene, in which Denny discusses the day’s traumatic events with his friend Alan (James Spader), brought a lump to my throat; every BL episode ends on a similar note, with these two very successful, very damaged men sharing good cigars, good whiskey, friendship, and truths that have never before been spoken. But this one, in which Denny quietly says that he dosen’t want to go home tonight and Alan immediately offer to come keep him company, was immensely moving.
I haven’t been a regular viewer of this show, but I think I like it more with every episode I see…
A week ago last Friday night, I stopped into a 24-hour supermarket on my way home from a St. Patty’s party. I’d been careful not to overindulge, but my mouth felt dry and gummy anyway, and I knew from experience that I would probably need a dose of electrolytes and rehydration therapy come morning.
I don’t know if anyone else is following this story or cares in the least, but I have a morbid fascination for it, so here’s what’s happening with former astronaut Lisa Nowak:
Lisa Nowak’s trial is expected to begin on July 30.