I don’t want to continue flailing away at this Iraqi prison scandal — I figure the professional journalists will do a more-than-adequate job of that over the next few weeks. Nevertheless, there’s an op-ed that I’d like to bring to the attention of my loyal readers. Its author is Thomas Friedman, the Foreign Affairs correspondant for The New York Times.
A number of friends have achieved or will be achieving some significant goals this month, so a round of congratulatory back-slappings is in order for the following individuals:
I was planning to write a Light ‘n’ Fluffy™ piece about my TV viewing habits today, but the news about American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners keeps intruding into my thoughts. I have to admit that this story took me by surprise, partly because I’ve kind of tuned out the war news over the past couple of weeks and this has forcibly reclaimed my attention, but also because this sort of thing just isn’t supposed to be how Americans behave. I am disappointed by my countrymen and I am gravely concerned about what this incident will mean in the long-term.
In Wednesday’s Trib, TV columnist Vince Horiuchi addressed a subject near and dear to my heart, the DVD. In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I wasn’t an early adopter of this home video format. I’d seen DVDs demonstrated and was impressed with their capabilities, but I’d spent years (and a helluva lot of money) building a huge movie collection on VHS tape, and I was frankly annoyed that my collection was suddenly obsolete. I know myself and I knew that as soon as I started buying those shiny silver platters with their amazing picture quality, I would want to replace all my fuzzy old tapes, and that really galled me. Eventually, however, I saw the writing on the walls. It happened the day I spotted X-Men on DVD for a better price than its VHS counterpart. The future had arrived. I caved. I bought my first disc before I even had a player. And I never looked back. Now I’ve got a collection of nearly 200 films and TV series on DVD, and yes, I have replaced many (though not all) of my older VHS movies.
Replacing older copies of your favorite movies is what Horiuchi addresses in Wednesday’s column; however, he’s not talking about making the switch from one format to another. What’s put a bee in his bonnet is the way the studios keep coming out with newer and better versions of movies that have already been released on DVD. You know what I’m talking about, even if you think you don’t. Here’s the usual scenario: you see a flick in the theaters and you like it enough that you think you want to own it. Six months later, it appears on a “bare bones” DVD that contains only the movie and a trailer. Maybe you wish it had a few more extra features on it, but you buy it anyhow. You really liked this movie, after all, and you want to add it to your home library now. But then another six months pass, maybe a year. And then one day you’re at Costco and you see that this very same movie has now been re-released on DVD in a new “special edition” with five hours of documentaries, behind-the-scenes footage, deleted scenes, and whatever other “value-added material” the studio execs have thrown on the disc in order to entice you. Now you’re faced with a choice — buy the new-and-improved version or be satisfied with the one you’ve already got? If you’re any kind of collector at all, you probably buy the new version, at least for the films that you really, really like. You feel like a chump for buying and storing the same title twice, but you do it anyway. It’s what the hard-core DVD afficionados on the Home Theater Forum refer to as “double-dipping,” and it can be annoying as hell. However, I think Horiuchi is wrong to denounce the entire practice and ask for only one version of each movie title, just to save him from his own lack of self-restraint.
I’m going to be honest here: the only reason I was remotely interested in seeing this week’s flick — which was advertised essentially as a remake of a film I consider to be a minor classic, namely Penny Marshall’s directorial debut, Big — is because the film’s star, Jennifer Garner, is so damn adorable. Don’t laugh; a lot of people base their viewing choices on the attractiveness of the cast. At least I’m honest about occasionally suffering through a less-than-impressive movie because I think the female lead is cute. Even some of the professional critics are prone to this behavior. For example, hop on over to Roger Ebert’s site and run a search for Neve Campbell. You’ll soon see that ol’ Rog has a crush on the Scream cutie and he’s not shy about admitting it.
Anyhow, getting back to my point, I went to see 13 Going on 30 because Jennifer Garner is cute, and because my usual viewing companion wanted to see it and I figured that I owed her after exposing her to the 70s cheesefest that is Battlestar Galactica the other night (yeah, I know it was an awful show, but I love the silly thing; at least I’m not into WWF. And if you’re curious for some depraved reason of your own, the episode Anne and I watched together was “Lost Planet of the Gods”). To my great surprise, the movie was neither a rip-off of Big — at least not much of one — nor was it a bad film. I quite liked it actually. But it is definitely a case of something that’s becoming all-too-common these days: the disconnect between how a movie is marketed and what it actually is.
When was the last time you thought about the person you called your best friend when you were in the fifth grade? If you’re mid-way through your thirties, as I am, you probably don’t think about your grade school pals very often at all. Maybe once or twice a year. Maybe less than that. It was so very long ago, after all, and a grown-up life is so very busy and filled with distractions. It’s hard to find time to think about your current friends, let alone those you haven’t seen in decades.
I’m probably about to lose whatever street cred I may have had as an intellectual observer of movies, but I simply can’t carry on the charade any longer: I don’t get Charlie Kaufman.
So, last night I got my weekly fix of 24 in a special Sunday night presentation instead of its usual Tuesday time slot. As loyal viewers of the series no doubt know already, the adventures of Jack Bauer and the gang at CTU were pre-empted this week for one of President Bush’s infrequent press conferences (actually, it was more of a short speech followed by a Q-and-A session, but subtle distinctions have never been the President’s strong suit).
The pre-emption was no big deal, really. Sorry to disappoint those who were hoping to read a good rant about my favorite TV show getting bumped because some politician needed the airtime. I haven’t done that since Jimmy Carter interrupted the premiere of Battlestar Galactica way back in 1978, and I was only seven then. I’m a big boy now, and I recognize that it’s not the end of the world if you must wait a few days to catch a TV show (hey, at least they reschedule stuff now; I didn’t see the complete Battlestar pilot for years after that first disastrous broadcast). Acceptance aside, however, I have been thinking a lot about Bush’s appearance last Tuesday and the reasons behind it.
I’ve run across a couple of interesting items today that I’d like to share, both courtesy of Mark Evanier. Evanier is an interesting guy, a Los Angeles-based writer who has worked in television (notably, he penned for many of the Saturday morning cartoons that rotted my brain as a kid) and comics (he was apprenticed under the legendary Jack Kirby and is a friend and colleague of Sergio Aragonés). He is also a Las Vegas enthusiast, amateur historian and unabashedly sentimental nostalgic. He’s the sort of guy I would happily call “friend,” if I could finagle some way to meet him, and his frequently-updated blog is on my daily hit list.
Anyway, the first thing Evanier directed me to was a fantastic New York Times op-ed piece by Michael Chabon in which he discusses the nature of the teenage mind, the reason why teens seem to be drawn to the Darker Side of entertainment and art, and the folly of trying to protect our children from the uglier aspects of life. As someone who read a helluva lot of Stephen King, Robert E. Howard, and other violent fictions while growing up without suffering any ill effects, I tend to agree with Chabon’s logic. This is a literate, thought-provoking piece that I highly recommend to anyone who has kids or who cares about freedom of expression. And, incidentally, if you haven’t read Chabon’s novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, do yourself a favor and pick it up immediately. It was the best fiction I read last year.
The other item of interest is a personal essay by Evanier himself in which he remembers his childhood hang-out, a Los Angeles drugstore where he bought comic books, discovered his first girlie magazine, made a friend of the proprietor, and first felt the sting of losing a place that really mattered to him in the name of “progress.” I found this essay very moving, and it evoked my own childhood memories of buying comics off the rack in a drugstore that has long since been torn down. It’s a good piece. I hope you enjoy it.
Great news for fans of stout! It seems that the old advertising slogan is quite correct: Guinness is good for you.
Among other benefits gained by choosing this hearty Irish brew instead of lighter and less-manly beers are “less alcohol, fewer calories, fewer carbohydrates and, to top it off, protection against heart attacks, blindness and maybe even impotence,” according to the article I linked to above. Hell, the stuff even seems to improve bone density — take that, milk drinkers!