The Strangers - Review

Director: Bryan Bertino
Writer: Bryan Bertino
Starring: Liv Tyler/Scott Speedman
Runtime: 90 minutes

The Strangers is a very chilling, very well put together movie.

It has all of the elements which I like in a horror flick: small cast, limited setting, limited timeframe. Horror movies that are drilled down in time and space always seem to do well, especially when they're of the "slasher" variety. The bigger a slasher movie gets, the more it sloshes around in the middle, until you need a bunch of dumb teenagers (with the bad dialogue they entail) to play easy victims and keep the thing moving.

In The Strangers, writer and director Bryan Bertino says to hell with it. He goes old school, and it works.

Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) and James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) are on their way back from a friend's wedding reception. They arrive at a country home in the woods, planning to spend the weekend.

All is not sunshine and music in their lives. Kristen is obviously upset about something, and Hoyt is quiet and depressed. We come to learn that something at the wedding went wrong between them, and now the champagne and the flowers in the house are meaningless.

This drew my interest right away. A horror movie that doesn't begin happy and carefree? Since when? As we all know, the rule book says that a horror movie must have a positive value at the beginning, so that when things get dark, it makes things seem very bad indeed.

Bertino shelves the rule book, and it's for the best. This film is spooky, but it's also very unsettling. Even the early scenes between Kristen and Hoyt have a feeling of dread. It only get worse when there's a knock at the door, and Hoyt asks, "What is it, four in the morning?"

Bad news. If you're in the middle of the woods at 4 AM, who do you think will be knocking at the door, the Avon lady, or a guy with an ax?

There are a couple of gaping holes in this film, as there are in most horror pics. I wasn't bothered by any of them. Bertino uses the old device of "what you don't see is what scares you," and it works as always. I remember last year seeing Vacancy and thinking that it was a great flick...until 25 minutes into it they blew the identity of the killers and I wasn't scared anymore. The Strangers doesn't make that mistake.

The Strangers will not leave you feeling great about life. It doesn't sew things up neatly in the Hollywood tradition. I didn't mind that, but I did mind one minor detail at the end of the film. I won't talk about it here, but I felt that Bertino caved in. The ending was good, but it could have been better if he'd left exactly 2.5 seconds out of the scene. That's a shame, because the rest of the movie was fine.

The movie states that it is "inspired by true events." I searched high and low for details about these events, but didn't come up with much. As always, beware the letter "s" in the word "events." The movie could be a hybrid of two stories, or twenty. In any case, it's a good, scary thriller and you should see it.

Latte With Your Controversy?

Okay, I guess it does look like a kaffiyeh.

This is a photo of Rachael Ray, host of the Food Network's 30 Minute Meals, as well as a daytime talk show. She's been pitching Dunkin' Donuts for a while now, and in this shot she's supposed to be showing you how nice it is to drink an iced latte while walking in the park. Or whatever.

The scarf around her neck attracted the attention of some bloggers, including Michelle Malkin. Here's Michelle, as quoted by Portfolio.com:

The kaffiyeh, Malkin wrote in a column posted online last Friday, "has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad. Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant (and not-so-ignorant) fashion designers, celebrities, and left-wing icons."

For the record, I think Michelle Malkin's great. She's intelligent, hot, and seems to have a pretty good sense of humor when she's not talking to Democrats. On this kaffiyeh deal, I guess I can meet her halfway.

Most of what she said above is true. Yasser Arafat did make the kaffiyeh part of Palestinian vogue, and it is commonly worn by guys that say they want to behead people and then do just that. Then again, thousands of other people wear them to keep the sun off their neck. I don't know what Dunkin' Donuts was after. For their part, they say that the material is paisley, and any resemblance to a kaffiyeh is coincidence. Just to make sure the issue went away, Dunkin' Donuts pulled the ad.

Dunkin' Donuts might not have seen the similarity, but I'm sure the ad designer did. "Resistance kaffiyehs" have become a growing fashion trend. They're not up there with the Che t-shirts yet, but they are turning up more often.

There's two ways you can look at it. One is to be offended, freak out, and worry yourself to death. The other is to be satisfied that at least you know who you're talking to. When buddies of mine used to wear the Che t-shirts, I knew they were drunk, feeling rebellious, and reading too much Camus and Sartre. My buddies didn't have a clue who Che Guevara was. When I told them he was from Argentina, they never believed me. "He's Cuban, loser! Viva Che! Free the people! Down with capitalism! Hand me that beer."

When my friends got older, they dropped the t-shirts and moved on with their lives. Another friend of mine, however, still wears one. That is how I know that, good buddy or not, he's a goofball.

McClellan's Bush Bash

When the news of Scott McClellan's book came out, I wasn't surprised on a couple of levels. If you haven't heard, the book is a tell-all from the former press secretary, and so far it looks like he disagreed with Bush on a ton of issues, and is willing to talk about them in detail.

The first reason for my lack of surprise is that loyalty doesn't mean much these days. Money talks, loyalty walks. I was amused to hear pundits say "thank you" to McClellan for giving us the dirty details on the Bush presidency (the jury's still out on the book's accuracy, with some calling it crap, others calling it exaggerated). But whatever the case, people are thanking McClellan for his disloyalty to his old boss.

I have a problem with that. If I spent three years with an advisor, it would be a massive stab in the back to have the guy write a book smearing me with his inside scoop. I have a hard time believing that you wouldn't feel the same way.

Let's not kid around, McClellan's book was written for money over honour, plain and simple. A tell-all book without dirt doesn't sell, and an honourable man doesn't smear his former boss for cash. But such are the times we live in, and that's why the book comes as no surprise.

On another level, it's no surprise to see a disgruntled press secretary. They're the lowest of the low in the Oval Office, usually the last to know anything. Pierre Salinger was kept in the dark by the Kennedy Administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis, because they were worried he'd spill some beans, be forced to lie, or screw something up that the Kremlin wouldn't understand. Salinger wasn't happy about it, and JFK didn't care. Nixon's press secretary Ron Ziegler was equally in the dark over Watergate, and I'm sure he was glad to be.

Now we have Scott McClellan, but with this difference: among other charges, McClellan's book apparently says that he knew Bush was making mistakes in Iraq and after Katrina, but he didn't say anything to anyone inside the White House. He also feels he was forced to bend the truth, and that he didn't feel comfortable with Bush's decisions. And that is what seems to have Bush and his other advisors so perplexed. When McClellan left office, Bush said he'd miss him and that the two of them would one day be sitting on the porch telling stories. There was not a trace of bad blood. Why the book?

Easy. Again, I was not surprised when I saw this bit from the AP: "[McClellan] reveals that he was pushed to leave earlier than he had planned, and he displays some bitterness about that as well as about being sometimes kept out of the loop on key decision-making sessions."

That's probably a line you could find on every press secretary's resume if they leave office before the end of their president's term. Only natural. A press secretary is someone who speaks for the president. He isn't like the other big-dog secretaries, of state and defense. He's a mouthpiece. The other secretaries get to make some policy decisions, and quite often they do it without the president's knowledge, only telling him about it later in the day. The secretaries of state and defense have clout, while the the press secretary only has a mouth.

I remember a fascinating transcript from the Nixon years, where Kissinger is on the phone as secretary of state, trying to calm things down in the Middle East. They're transcripts of phone calls between Kissinger and all kinds of Middle East big shots.

The next transcript in the book is between Kissinger and Nixon. The whole thing is Kissinger telling Nixon what he'd said that day to all of these world leaders, while Nixon throws in an "All right, Henry," every few sentences.

Presidents are busy. They need their secretaries to do that sort of thing. Except for the press guy. He doesn't set any policies, ever, and if he did, he'd be gone. Because he's not just speaking to some reporters, he's speaking to the world at large. There is no "backdoor channel" with a press secretary. His channel is a global one.

That must rankle. I can imagine there are many people out there that would like to be a press secretary, thinking they'll be rubbing shoulders with the people in the Oval Office and helping to decide the fate of the nation. Then they learn what the job's really like: you say what we tell you to. No more. No less. Stay on message. Don't send mixed signals. And your input isn't that important, so for God's sake don't improvise on policy.

Good press secretaries are not good thinkers or policy makers. Their true talent lies in the ability to field the same question 100 times without changing their answer.

It sounds to me like McClellan didn't like the job. He let things stew from 2003 to 2006, and then he blurted it all onto paper after he left his post. Most of the quotations from the book are very "I would have done it this way."

Unfortunately Scott, it didn't matter what you thought. Perhaps you think it does now?

Photo: AP/Ron Edmonds

Fade to Black - Sydney Pollack

I'll never forget the scene in Jeremiah Johnson where Robert Redford is in front of a lonely campfire deep in the Rocky Mountains. Snow is knee deep, and Redford is bearded, scarred up, and quiet. He's been fighting Crow for years, and the battles are taking their toll.

In the distance, an old man rides up. We watch him from a long way off, trudging through the snow. When he gets to Johnson's fire, we recognize him as Bear Claw, the old man who helped train Johnson in ways of the Mountain Man.

During their brief, slow conversation, Johnson looks at Bear Claw and asks, "Would you have any idea what month of the year it is?"

I always loved that scene, and Jeremiah Johnson is one of my favorite movies. Sydney Pollack directed it, and it was one of his best.

Over Pollack's career, he had a lot of successful pictures as a director and producer. He also helped make Oscar nominees out of a ton of actors (though Harrison Ford is rumored to have never wanted to work with the man again, after the strange debacle that was Random Hearts).

Pollack's lifelong friend Robert Redford appeared in seven of his films, almost all of them good ones. Three Days of the Condor and Jeremiah Johnson are my top two Redford/Pollack flicks; Out of Africa comes in last, though the ladies and the Academy liked it.

He was acting in more films and television lately, and I thought that he'd be around for a lot longer. He was quite a good actor, and his turn in Michael Clayton led me to believe that he might start taking bigger roles. This was wishful thinking on my part, as Pollack had been sick with cancer a while before his death.

If you're interested in looking at some of Pollack's stuff, here's my picks for this weekend: Jeremiah Johnson, Absence of Malice, They Shoot Horses Don't They, and Tootsie. If you're more the tear-jerker type, scratch out Malice and re-run The Way We Were instead.

Whatever you decide, watch Tootsie last, and let Pollack leave you with a few laughs.

Photo: Hollywood Film Festival

Michel Therrien - The Cry Baby's Coach

“He’s a good actor,” Therrien said. “I know our players are frustrated right now. It’s tough to play the game, but Osgood did the same thing against Dallas.

“Our team never goes to the goalie. We never did it, and we don’t target the goalie. You want to talk about experience, he goes to players, and he knows what to do, I guess.” -- Yahoo Sports

That's Pittsburgh Penguin head coach Michel Therrien, after his team lost another Stanley Cup Final game without scoring a goal. "We don't target the goalie." Nice sanctimony, pal. Take it easy on your soother while watching tape of your team's latest embarrassment.

I've got a question for Coach Sanctimony: exactly when did you tell your bush league team to start headhunting Johan Franzen? Was it when the Red Wings had two goals before your team even had a shot on net? Or was it before the game, when you knew you were probably going to get smoked anyway?

Johan Franzen returned to the Red Wings line-up tonight after a couple of weeks off. He suffered a concussion earlier in the month, and doctors hadn't cleared him to play until this afternoon. Tonight, after the Wings were up 2-0, the Penguins went to work.

First it was Gary Roberts, the Penguins' has-been defenseman who was a healthy scratch in game 1. All day the sports media talked about having Roberts back in the line-up, hungry for his stellar play and great experience. What a laugher. In the third period, Franzen passed the puck into the opponent's end. Two seconds later, Roberts skated up behind him and punched him in the side of the head. The refs missed it.

A few minutes later, play was whistled dead, and three seconds later Ray Whitney skated up behind Franzen and sucker punched him in the back of the head. Again, the refs missed it.


There is no way that these two players did not intentionally try to injure Franzen with a sucker punch. They've known about his concussion symptoms since the beginning of the series. Tonight, they couldn't help but see the word FRANZEN written on the back of his jersey. And, when the refs weren't looking and Franzen didn't have the puck, they tried to ring his bell and get him scratched from game 3.

I've always thought the Penguins were a whining, bush league team, and tonight's garbage from their players and coach only proved it.

Photo: CBC

Pretty Women, Petty Readers

All right, so maybe I'm a broken record on this topic, but I wish people would lighten up.

Please tell me what is wrong with pretty women? There seem to be an awful lot of people out there that are offended by something nice to look at.

Take the Post. They ran a cover story about two models, one male, one female. To the horror of readers, they even included a couple of pictures. Here's a couple of letters the Post received after the disturbing images went to print:

“I was quite flabbergasted to find these two models gracing your front page,” wrote J. Raj. “Since when do we take credit for physical attributes that have nothing to do with our efforts and performance? And, looking at people disrobing or revealing their physical attributes is not the reason I buy the Post. There are more pressing issues that need our attention.”

“I have a question for the people who decided to put the picture of Jayde Nicole on the front page: Are you sure you would have wanted younger friends and/or relatives to see it?” asked David W. Lincoln. “If ‘no’ is the answer, why are you treating your audience as second class? What isn’t good enough for your younger friends and relatives ought not to be good enough for anyone.”

Oh, get over yourselves. And as for whether or not I would want my relatives to see the pic of Playmate Jayde Nicole, I can't speak for them, but if they didn't forward me the pic, I'd be pissed.

The Post isn't alone. The old time artists caught some grief for the shocking image of a human body. Here's Goya's Nude Maja, and Clothed Maja. There's all kind of rumours for why he painted the second clothed version, but no one is certain. The best guess is that people freaked at the first full-on depiction of pubic hair in Western art (over 150 years before the Pubic Wars of Playboy/Penthouse). Rather than paint over the original, Goya created a whole new painting. Today, they hang together in the Museo del Prado.

To me, the nude is a beautiful piece of art, while the clothed version looks like he painted it in an afternoon while muttering, "Fine, here you go, prudish morons."





Photo Jayde Nicole: National Post

Wings Win Game 1

The Red Wings took game 1 in fine fashion. I won't go on about the refs making another garbage call against Holmstrom for interference...except to say that it was another garbage call for interference. In any case, the Wings won the game and held Sidney Crosby to 3 shots. Good enough for me.

By the way, here's an interesting story about Kris Draper, from Yahoo Sports:

The rugged forward also had a laugh when asked about minor league baseball player John Odom, who was traded this week by the Calgary Vipers of the Golden Baseball League to the Laredo Broncos of the United League for 10 Prairie Sticks Maple Bats.

That’s a king’s ransom in the world of Draper, who was dealt by Winnipeg to Detroit 15 years ago for the whopping price of one dollar. Draper played in only 20 games for the Jets in four years after being chosen with the 62nd pick in the 1989 draft.

“Well, 10 bats are a lot more expensive than one dollar, so that’s not too bad,” said Draper, who has scored 141 NHL goals and won three Stanley Cup titles. “To this day, I never found out if it was an American dollar or a Canadian dollar. That’s the one looming question that I always have.”

Photo: Samuelsson Scores in Game 1/AFP/Getty Images/Jim Mcisaac

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Review

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: David Koepp
Starring: Harrison Ford/Shia LaBeouf
Runtime: 2 hours 3 minutes

For the first time since 1989, Indiana Jones rides onto the bigscreen in Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It's a not-so-bad fourth installment of the Jones saga, and fans of the series will probably enjoy this one as much as any of the others.

I was looking at a couple of Jones pictures a few weeks ago, and was reminded that movies look better in your memories than they do on the bigscreen. A couple of scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark left me wondering how I could have felt that the movie was a masterpiece. It was a good movie, to be sure, but the fight scenes seemed cheesier than they used to, and the comedic timing seemed a bit off.

For that reason, I give Kingdom fairly high marks. Comparing it to a masterpiece wouldn't do it justice, because the original films weren't high art: they were fun adventure movies, which is what you'll find with Kingdom.

This movie takes place in the 50's. Jones has gotten older and a little bit slower. We learn that he hasn't been in too many scraps in a while. Of course, the Nazis are long gone, so Jones' new enemy turns out to be the Russians. One of them, played by Cate Blanchett, is on a quest for rare antiquities which she feels will give her super powers.

The movie is much the same as the other three. Once Jones smells an adventure, he takes off to exotic locales and fights the world's enemies, ensuring that they can't use humanity's artifacts to do harm. I won't give away much of the plot, but let's say that David Koepp (War of the Worlds) was the screenwriter, and that the opening of the film occurs in the Nevada desert. Draw your own conclusions about where this might lead.

The cast is good. Shia LaBeouf plays a good, smartass sidekick, and Karen Allen returns as Marion Ravenwood. Her relationship with Indy is fun, if a bit predictable. John Hurt has a small part as an archeologist who has gone out of his mind, and he plays it well. I heard some people say that Cate Blanchett wouldn't hold up as the evil Soviet villian. Right. She's Cate Blanchett. Enough said.

But how about Ford?

That was the question that seemed to be on everyone's mind before the movie was released. Ford's now over 65, and many have wondered if he could pull off the part, stunts and all.

I don't know if Ford did all of his own stunts. I doubt it, because some of them look pretty rough. But he carries the part of Indiana Jones as if he hasn't missed more than five minutes. The hat, the whip, the leather jacket, none of them look silly on him.

Harrison Ford is just one of those actors: likable. You want to see him do well, and he almost always does. He is just as believable in this movie as any of the others, and the script does a good job of cracking wise about his age without turning it into a full-blown comedy.

One thing the movie does suffer from is a cheap look to the lighting, especially in the opening of the film. The sets are obviously fake, and the lighting is very much like that found in sit-coms. I don't know why it was lit this way, but for the first ten minutes of the film, I had a sinking feeling. If it went on much longer like that, the cheapness of the movie would override the story, and you'd immediately sense a flop coming on.

Spielberg rights the ship after that, and from then on it's fairly smooth sailing, except for Jones: he ends up in so many fights and chases that you have to admire Ford for taking the part. Action movies are not easy to do, whether as an actor or director.

For the fans wondering if this movie will kill their memories of Indiana Jones, don't sweat it. This flick won't have you cheering for joy, but it will easily entertain and not leave you wishing they hadn't made it.

Photos: Yahoo Movies

Sports "Journalism"

The joke that passes for Toronto sports journalism just gets funnier every day.

Friends of mine know the deep contempt I hold for sportscasters, especially the ones that cover baseball. But today's episode of Michael Landsberg's Off The Record helps to back up my claim that as "journalists," anyone within fifty feet of sports is a sycophantic hack. TSN, Canada's lame answer to ESPN, is guilty of it daily, and Landsberg is their bigshot interviewer.

Today, Landsberg's guest was JP Ricciardi, general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays. Landsberg gave Ricciardi a grand total of five minutes on the program, and spent the segment pressing Ricciardi about Barry Bonds. The Jays' hitting has been in the dumps for weeks, and Lansberg wants to know why Ricciardi won't sign Bonds to a contract.

Ricciardi's answer was intelligent and correct. He said Bonds would be too much of a distraction and that the team didn't need him in the locker room. Landsberg pressed him and pressed him, to no avail. Ricciadi stuck with his "distraction" argument.

After the commercial break Landsberg had his usual panel of misfits on for a round table. One was an ex-baseball player, another a radio host from the CBC. Both of them thought it was ludicrous that the Jays won't sign Bonds. The CBC guy said, "What, because of steroid trouble? Yawn. Who cares?"

This round table went on for five minutes, and in all of that time, they only mentioned Bonds' alleged steroid use in passing, and made some humorous references to Bonds' ego. Two of the other panel members said signing Bonds wouldn't be a good idea, because he'd too self-absorbed and likes to have his own recliner in the locker room.

After a good "sports show group laugh" to end the segment, Landsberg, wonderful sports journalist that he is, cut to commercial.

So what's my problem with the show? How about this:

Last year, Bonds was indicted by a US grand jury on charges of obstruction of justice and five counts of perjury. Just last week, the US attorney upped the perjury rap from five counts to 14. If convicted at trial, Bonds stands the chance of spending 30 months behind bars.

So, how many times do you think Landsberg or his panel discussed these felony criminal charges? Not once.

It is inconceivable that a sports "journalist" would not use this material while questioning a GM about signing a player. It's plain incompetent that he didn't tell any of this to his audience in detail.

So why won't they sign Bonds to a contract? Gee, I don't know, Mike. Maybe because they're afraid the courtroom drama will distract the team, and the guy might end up doing hard time before his contract's up?

Every time I think that sportscasters can't do anything else to prove what fools they are, along they come to embarrass themselves yet again. Won't be the last time.

Keep Talking

I had an interesting chat with a buddy of mine tonight. We batted around the hockey playoffs for a while, I asked him how business was going, he asked me the same. Then he told me that he'd checked out my blog and he was curious about this "human rights stuff."

My friend stays up to date on things, so I asked him if he'd heard anything about the Mark Steyn/Maclean's deal. He told me he hadn't, but that he'd seen something in the Globe about the human rights issue sometime after reading my blog.

He said, "So give this stuff to me in a nutshell. Sounds like Communist Russia or something."

I found that interesting. My friend and I are fairly opposite on the political side of things. I lean more right, he leans more left. I was wondering how he was going to view the Canadian human rights issue. Then it occurred to me that this stuff isn't about right or left. For people that are immersed in the internet, the world is all right and left. For people like my friend, life is just life, and it becomes left or right on election day.

See, my buddy's just some guy. He doesn't scour the news for political conspiracies. Like most Canadians, before tonight he had no idea that there's a human rights commission in every province, or even what they're for. So when I told him about the stuff going on now, he was a bit incredulous.

I explained things further, and the further I went, the more he said, "Jesus. What?"

We talked about the bar owner in Burlington that got screwed for not letting a guy smoke dope on his porch, and we talked about the free speech stuff, and we talked about the dude in Vancouver that wants BDSM to be called a "sexual orientation," so much so that he's using it in a discrimination complaint against the cops.

The more we talked, the more my buddy didn't quite believe me. He said, "So...it's like civil suits or something? Like, they can award punitive damages."

And I said, "No, as far as I can tell, they award all kinds of damages, but they're careful not to call them 'punitive.' They're called 'remedies.'"

To which my friend replied, "Huh." Then he asked who Mark Steyn is and what all that was about. Again, he laughed and said he wanted it in a nutshell.

"Well," I said, "it's like this. Mark Steyn wrote a book and said the Muslim population is growing faster than the rest of the population, and by such-and-such a time, they'll be a big political force in whatever European country. Maybe Sharia law and whatever. He also quoted some imam guy that says Muslims will "breed like mosquitoes." Maclean's ran an excerpt of the book. So this guy filed a human rights complaint against him and Maclean's in Ontario, BC, and with the Feds. He wants the commissions to force Maclean's to print an essay written by a writer of their choosing, and they want it to be a cover story."

My buddy said, "What?"

But the 'what' wasn't for anything Steyn had written, but for the fact that someone was trying to tell Maclean's what to print.

And again, it hit me: my buddy's just some guy. He might be left, he might be right, but he's still Canadian, and these complaints struck him as incredibly un-Canadian. Before calling me, he probably thought he had nothing to fear by writing or saying any damn thing he wanted. Now I was telling him the opposite. That's a tough thing to hear when you're not ready for it. In a way, it's life changing.

I told him that I knew these commissions were a bad thing because last week I sat down to write something...and I paused.

That is the first time in my life as a Canadian citizen that I have ever thought twice about saying what's on my mind for fear of getting in trouble for it. First time ever. The words of the commissions were going through my head: "likely to expose someone to hatred or contempt."

Okay. So tell me what "likely" means. Or "contempt."

I think the blog was about gay marriage. I'm not against it, but I'm not for it. I think it needs time to sink in, and that it shouldn't be rushed. The reason I paused is I suddenly thought, "Could someone spin this as me "likely to expose someone to contempt?'"

Couldn't they do that to anything you or I write?

That's what I don't get about the weirdos that say, "But no one's been convicted of a speech complaint yet, not unless they're a neo-Nazi." That isn't the point. Fact is, the more you learn about these commissions, the more you learn how easy it is to drag someone through the mud for saying something, even if the complainant doesn't see it through to the end. The fear of accusation is enough to frighten and silence people. But then, I guess that's their whole point, too.

I told my buddy about this. I told him that I didn't want to write political blogs all the time, because I don't want to be seen as some political crank. That's why I mix it up, so my friends don't get bored. But once in a while, politics is fun to write about. Yet now I was nervous. Could I write about these commissions, or should I just ease off in case someone decided to screw me over?

My buddy's just some guy. He had one thing to say:

"Keep talking about it."

Idol Over

No dice, looks like David Cook took the Idol prize. I thought if Archuleta won, we'd get to see a Stage Dad-inspired meltdown from the kid sometime around 2010. Lots of tantrums, credit card debt, binge drinking in Vegas, therapy, so forth. Alas, no. Still, the kid can sing and I'm pretty sure he'll have an album out within a year.

This was the first year I tuned in to Idol, though my viewing of the karaoke contest began to dry up once baseball season started. The hockey playoffs next guaranteed that I wouldn't see all of the final episodes, but I saw more than enough.

Cook Wins
I didn't understand what all the Idol hype was before, and now I see it's the same old draw: the chance to make it big. Shows like that never go out of style, they only change into something else. Now we have So You Think You Can Dance, and America's Got Talent. Canada's got its own version of Idol, as do several other countries. Even Afghanistan has their own version, which is actually quite cool: a woman made it to the top three. Only a few years ago, she would never have been singing in public, let alone on TV. A few years later, and she's entertaining the masses for a shot at five thousand dollars. Five thousand!

One thing I do have to say is that the American Idol producers treated the losers pretty well. I thought they would have put them out to pasture immediately, but tonight they brought a bunch of them back to sing with stars like Bryan Adams and Donna Summer. I didn't even know Donna Summer was still around, but she still sings well.

Tonight Cook sang a good cover of ZZ Top's Sharp Dressed Man. He's got definite chops and we'll be hearing a lot of him in the coming years.

Now back to the hockey game.

Go Gaspy Go

I'm with Vote For The Worst on this one (VFTW are the guys that ask their fans to phone in and vote for the worst American Idol contestant, to piss off America). Anyway, if enough people called in and voted for David Archuleta (whom VFTW calls "Gaspy"), then we will get to watch a meltdown of mammoth proportions over the coming year or two.

Root For Gaspy
What could be better? An Up With People kid that sings sappy songs, cries at the drop of a hat, and has a monster Stage Dad for a father (the kid's pop was banned from Idol's backstage, and the other contestants couldn't stand him; he's got Record Producer Hell written all over him). If little Dave wins Idol, the kid will have a record label before he has credit cards. Always a recipe for tabloid disaster.

As for the other finalist, David Cook, he actually has chops and looks like he could go far. For this reason, he should be praying to lose the competition. If he loses, he's out from under the Idol record contract, which would only hem him in. After the publicity he's received the past few months, there's no way he doesn't get a record contract anyway, and he can dictate the terms.

Go Gaspy.

DePalma's Obsession

I was suring around looking at movie news when I found this bit on Politico.com (yes, when you read about movie stars, you usually find them on the political websites):

Brian DePalma isn’t one to give up easily, either. Skewered last year by conservative critics for the box-office flop “Redacted,” the controversial director is returning to the Iraq war as the subject matter of his next picture.

That’s the news from Cannes, where Canadian distribution company Film Farm says it will back two new DePalma pictures: the director’s next Iraq attack and a more conventional political thriller with a higher budget.

The delusions of Hollywood bigshots is laughable. "Conservative critics?" Not quite. The entire nation told DePalma where he could put Redacted. DePalma might think that a few conservative critics put the kibosh on his film (because conservative critics control the box office), but perhaps there's an easier answer: the movie sucked. Leave it to a Canadian distributor to think that next time, DePalma will have a hit with the same theme that already blew all four tires.

Photo: New York

Burma and Stallone Revisited

I was putting a couple of movie reviews into the proper folder just now, and I stumbled upon my old review of Rambo.

With what's been going on in Burma the past week, I wonder if perhaps Stallone was on to something. Here's what I had to say then:

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2008 - RAMBO - REVIEW

Sly Stallone returns as John Rambo, in a movie that is bound to make movie reviewers puke and Far East movie fans cheer for more.

That's the way it goes with action pictures. I've worked with and befriended a lot of Filipinos and Indonesians, and they all adore two things: karaoke, and movies about men with guns. After America's pussification in the 1970's, action movies have had their biggest draw from international audiences. Since these audiences aren't American, they don't find it shameful to watch an American blow things up all in the name of fun.

I don't know why Stallone turned to another Rambo flick. Perhaps he's going through a mid-life crisis and saying good-bye to some old memories. First there was Rocky Balboa, to which even the critics gave grudging respect. But Stallone went a bridge too far this time, and they're slamming Rambo.

I'm not.

When are critics going to lighten up? They hand garbage movies Oscar nods (Atonement, No Country For Old Men), and talk about them in breathless whispers. Then they turn around and crucify a 90 minute action movie for being a 90 minute action movie.

Exactly what do people expect from a movie that has a poster showing Stallone wielding a homemade machete?

Here's what you get with Rambo: he's living in Burma as a snake wrangler. To the north, the Burmese army is killing civilians with impunity. A missionary group shows up, and they talk Rambo into taking them north. Rambo tells them several times to go home, but of course they don't listen. So guess what happens? That's right, the missionaries are captured and Stallone goes north to kill everyone he can get his hands (or bow, or machete, or machinegun) on.

But here's the kicker: I actually think Stallone put some thought into this one. Go ahead and laugh, maybe you're right. But tell me, is Rambo wrong when he says that the missionaries can't change anything? That this is the way some of the more horrible parts of the world operate?

Stallone wrote and directed the picture, and he had some guts making it. Though everyone thinks genocide and murderous regimes are evil (Rwanda, Darfur, for that matter Burma), not too many films are talking about it. Burmese monks are being shot and killed in the streets as I write this, and women are being hacked to death in Africa every other day. But Hollywood has nothing to say about it.

I may be crazy, but I think Stallone might have slipped one under the radar with this movie. Yes, it's a dumb action flick, but it has more to say about the violence and horrible evil going on in this world than any film has said since Hotel Rwanda.

Perhaps dumb action pictures are what it takes. "Important" films only talk about Western injustice (as was the main thrust of Hotel Rwanda, no matter who actually spilled the blood). To make a film about injustice in Africa or Asia you run a very great risk of being called a racist or a warmonger. Stallone walks this line with gusto, and I found myself admiring him for it.

In the end, Stallone avoids the racist/warmonger tags by being Stallone (no one takes him seriously, anyway), and hiding his views under a sequel. If Mel Gibson or Spielberg made a film with this subject matter, the fallout would be huge. When Stallone does it, it's "Ah, what do you expect?"

I think Stallone's vision of the world is very dark indeed. You do not write and direct a movie such as this without one. It is not by accident that one of the lead, peaceful missionaries in the film finds himself faced with an ancient dilemma (kill or be killed) and decides to bash someone's head in with a rock. And then is horrified that Rambo's early prophesy came true: this is what the world is, depending where on the planet you happen to find yourself.

Am I making too much of all this? Probably. But if the critics and the Academy are allowed to make a big deal out of a piece of crap like Atonement, then I'm allowed to wax eloquently about Rambo.

The reality of politics and war in the modern world is rendered very well here. The killing for killing's sake, and the absolutely brutal regime in Burma. Stallone is not far off the mark with his one-dimensional evil characters. As a rule, evil people in life are one-dimensional. They kill people, they plunder their land, and they kill more people. Until, in this case, Rambo shows up with lines like, "If you're pushed hard enough, killing's as easy as breathing."

The special effects in this movie are the best gunshot effects I have seen in any movie, ever. Pekinpah would have loved this flick. Sam started the whole "bullet going right through the guy" trick, and it hasn't changed much since. Stallone just did. It is probably the first and only movie that will show you what a large caliber weapon does to a person: it doesn't put a hole in them. It blows them to pieces.

That might draw your ire, but my hat is off to Stallone. He decided to go over old ground, but he did it with some new tricks, and he ended the movie after 93 minutes, before you had time to be over the whole thing.

Redbelt - Review

Director: David Mamet
Writer: David Mamet
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor/Emily Mortimer
Runtime: 1 hr 39 minutes

Hardcore fans of mixed martial arts won't find much to cheer about in Redbelt, because the movie isn't meant for them. David Mamet has written a movie that uses the fighting world as a backdrop for a character study of Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Terry is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor who does not compete for money, but teaches the mental and physical discipline of the martial art to newcomers, women, cops, kids, you name it. He loves Jiu-Jitsu, and it is as much a part of him as his right hand.

Unfortunately for Terry, not everyone regards the sport as something to be praised. For them, martial arts is about money, plain and simple. When Terry gets involved with these people, he finds out that he stands virtually alone as a man of principle, both in and out of the ring.

There's not much new in Redbelt. We've all seen sports movies where the hero is the only one with a principled spirit. The movie also uses a pressure-device which Mamet loves: money, and betrayal, and money, and betrayal. But Redbelt is a very, very well-told story, too, and Chiwetel Ejiofor is a very good actor. His eyes have such concentration, and his acting such easy nuance, that it is a pleasure to watch him work.

Redbelt shakes down like most sports movies. Terry is not a rich martial arts instructor, so when the opportunity to rub shoulders with the high and mighty presents itself, he falls into the trap. It is only later that he realizes he is getting screwed by virtually everyone around him. When that happens he has a choice to make. You know Ejiofor is right for the part because after watching the film, you can think of no one else that could have even come close.

I was leery of seeing Redbelt because I haven't liked David Mamet's films in quite a while. His last film, Spartan, left me feeling vaguely uneasy about Mamet, as if he just wasn't that good anymore.

I read a book by Mamet a while back, where he talked about acting. Mamet has always hated the Method technique. In his book, he said rehearsal should be kept to a minimum, and that actors should recite dialogue as if reading from a phone book. He said the meaning would come forth, and that "making funny faces" (acting) wasn't required.

If you've seen Spartan or The Spanish Prisoner, then you've seen this rule put into play. The characters all talk as if their mouths are made of wood and the words are made of lead. In some scenes, it seems as if there's a cue card tacked to the wall just off-camera, and the actor is reading the lines.

Mamet's stature as a writer and director lets him get away with this stuff, because we've come to believe that if we don't "get" anything the masters give us, then it must be good. I'm not so sure. Frankly, I thought The Spanish Prisoner was a cliche piece of junk, and that Mamet is a much more accomplished playwright and director than he is a screenwriter and director.

Redbelt changes my mind. Going against his own book, Mamet has directed the actors to act, and they do. Quite well, too. Because he's David Mamet, there are several cameos by name stars in the picture (Tim Allen, Joe Mantegna), and they come off fine, as do the rest of the cast. Emily Mortimer is particularly good. But really, it's Ejiofor that steals the show and makes the movie.

If you're looking for fight scenes, you won't find a lot of them here. This movie uses Jiu-Jitsu to compliment the struggles in Mike Terry's life, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that except this: Redbelt might miss its audience because the trailers and previews highlight the fight scenes and make it seem like an Ultimate Fighting Rocky.

That's a shame. There's a chance that the drama crowd will skip the pic, thinking it's a sweaty sports movie, while the sports crowd will feel ripped off and smear the picture. This scenario reminds me of Clint Eastwood's A Perfect World. It couldn't decide whom to aim its marketing at, the title was weird, and it ended up missing everyone. Too bad, too, because it's one of the best pictures Eastwood ever made.

Here's what the Yahoo Movies logline has for Redbelt: "An American samurai film set in the L.A. fight world about a Jiu-Jitsu master who turned his back on prizefighting to operate a self-defense studio, but is conned by a cabal of celebs and fight promoters to enter the ring in order to regain his honor."

Um, no. Nice try. That's what the movie might seem to be about, but Redbelt doesn't come close to the Van Damme image that the logline portrays. This is why I think Redbelt is going to suffer at the box office.

Redbelt, for my money, is some of the best directing and writing David Mamet has done in years. I just hope people go and see it.

Photos: Yahoo Movies

What Happens In Vegas - Review

Director: Tom Vaughan
Writer: Dana Fox
Starring: Ashton Kucher/Cameron Diaz
Runtime: 1 hr 38 minutes

Critics hate a comedy because there's nothing to pontificate about after they've seen it. With dramas, you can talk all day about character development, plot and subplot, existential meaning, redemption, symbolism, values, political commentary, so forth. Criticizing a drama lets you sound smarter than the director and writer.

With comedy, there's only one thing that matters: laughter. This drives critics nuts because no matter how much you point out There's Something About Mary's flaws, people will look at you like you're a headcase: the movie made them laugh. Done deal.

I wouldn't be surprised if the critics don't like What Happens In Vegas, because it's a movie built upon an implausible concept, and there's holes in the plot the size of the Grand Canyon, plus it get romantically sappy towards the end. But to the critics' dismay, the movie has one thing going for it: it makes you laugh.

In Vegas, Jack Fuller (Ashton Kucher) and Joy McNally (Cameron Diaz) are two New York strangers that get a bum deal. Jack is fired by his father because Jack refuses to take his job seriously, and Joy is dumped by her fiancee because she takes things too seriously. Their antidote for the bad news is to take a trip to Vegas with their best friends. Once in town, Jack and Joy meet, party, and get wasted. In the morning when she wakes up, Joy find a note taped to her mirror: "Wifey, we're downstairs having breakfast." On her finger is a two-bit wedding band.

The two of them decide to seek an annulment as soon as possible, but fate steps in. During their morning discussion, Jack uses one of Joy's quarters to play a slot machine, and he ends up hitting the jackpot. Three million bucks.

You can guess what happens next. Joy says the cash is hers, and Jack says the cash is his. But in divorce court, the judge (Dennis Miller) has different ideas, sentencing them to "6 months of hard marriage," at the end of which, perhaps he'll see who deserves the cash.

That's a bogus concept. It would never fly in real life. And...who cares?

The reason Vegas works is because the actors are into it whole hog. They believe it. Kucher and Diaz have very good chemistry together, and many of their scenes are literally just that: scenes. They don't connect the plot in any way, except to show how funny or hard married life can be. Time in the bathroom. Toilet seat up-down training. Man's hand in pants while he watches TV and eats popcorn.

The movie is perfectly cast. Jack's best friend, played by Rob Corddy, has some great lines, and is very good as the slimy lawyer-buddy. Lake Bell is equally good as Joy's friend, and has most of the best cynical put-downs in the flick. She reminds me very much of Katherine Keener, and I'll bet she does just as well if she keeps taking good, funny roles. Queen Latifah and Treat Williams also have cameos, and they make them work.

Something the movie rarely touches upon is sex, and I think it's a good choice. Let's be real: who wouldn't mind being forced to live with Cameron Diaz for 6 months? That sounds like a sentence made in beer buddy heaven. But if the movie had bogged down into a silly flick about Kucher trying to sleep with Diaz, it would have lost all of its charm. Instead, the movie does find some poignancy while not losing decent laughs.

Cameron Diaz, by the way, has never looked more beautiful. If the guys need an excuse to see this chick flick, then Diaz in lingerie ought to do the trick.

All in all, a very satisfying romantic comedy that will make you laugh. See it.

The New Rules Of Running

The all-inclusive resort that is the world today gets more inclusive by the minute. Oscar Pistorius, a South African track runner, has been cleared to compete in the Olympic Games by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Why this is news is because Pistorius is a double amputee. He lost both legs as a child, and uses two carbon fibre blades to get around the track.

The IAAF had banned Pistorius from Olympic competition. According to the Times Online, the IAAF's position was that no one should be allowed to race if they used technical devices to assist them. The court struck down that ruling.

You can easily be accused of discrimination if you don't take the side of a disabled person, but it can't be understated how much of an impact this could have upon sports.

Take performance enhancing drugs. Over past decades, they have been outlawed by sporting commissions everywhere. But now, what happens if a person can show that they are disabled and need the drug in order to perform? Would the runner still be disqualified, or would their performance stand because of their disability? And who decides what is, and is not, a disability worthy of technical or medical assistance? How much assistance is also a sticking point.

It is not certain whether Pistorius will qualify for the Olympics, but one thing is sure: racing as we know it is gone for good. This is a massive loophole which athletes and their coaches can drive a Mack truck through, and every race involving a disabled person will have to come with an equally massive asterisk.

(Photo: Times Online)

Tempest In A Latte Cup

I'm always a little amused at the prudishness of Western society, especially on late night TV in North America. The bare shoulder shot is usually as steamy as it gets in prime time, although sometimes you will see a scene where a woman wraps herself in the entire bedsheet in order to walk to the bathroom. Talk about high maintenance. You have to cook her breakfast and make the bed?

Anyway, prudish people are harmless enough, and sometimes they even come up with a good laugh. Here's a beauty from a guy that runs a Christian group in San Diego, regarding the barechested mermaid on the Starbucks, er, cups:

"Need I say more? It's extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves Slutbucks."

More on the story here.



Photo: Star Tribune

Wedding Bells In Frisco

California's Supreme Court recently struck down state laws and declared that homosexuals can now get married, and enjoy all of the legal rights (and obligations) that go with it.

Some are saying that the victory parade will be short lived, because there's a movement in California to have the state constitution amended to include a ban on same-sex marriage.

When I heard the wedding bells out of California today, I went back and looked at one of my old pieces from last year. I more or less still feel the same way.

One thing about the California deal that does bother me is that seven people have decided the fate of all Californians, and the voters didn't get to say squat. Courts seem more and more brash when it comes to writing law, and California's courts are certainly no stranger to the legislative quill and ink.

Bon Chance, Paul

The Red Wings took Dallas 4-1 in the opener, so all is well there. And Leaf Land? Ah, the endless bad news out of Toronto continues as yet another head coach hits the golf course. This time it's Paul Maurice on his way out the door. I don't know who I have to thank for never being a Leaf fan, but thank them I do.

Barbara Walters - Captain of the Softball Team

"I have to make this clear: he and I never had a romance."

That's Barbara Walters, talking about Fidel Castro. She goes on to say that Castro's a very charismatic man, but reminds us that he is a dictator.

No kidding. Thanks, Barb. When he locked up AIDS patients and had his political adversaries shot, I thought old Fidel was just a nice guy having a bad day. Not that you ever pressed him on those topics.

I caught a bit of Barbara Walters' special tonight. Called Audition, it's a pitch for her new book by the same name.

Who says Barb doesn't run ABC? She's already got a couple of shows under her thumb, and now she tells the network to give her an interview to pitch her new book. Well, not give her an interview, but Charlie Gibson, the former breakfast guy who's now trying to be an evening news anchor. He got stuck with kissing Barb's wrinkled ass for a full hour. I'd feel sorry for him, but all those years of watching his sanctimonious puss say "Good Morning, America," makes me think he deserves a Barbara Walters interview for the rest of his life.

Gibson even asked Walters about her sex life, dating back decades. He'd say a man's name, and Barb would say what kind of lover he was, how romantic, how fun. How gross. After the third man's name was mentioned, I barely made it to the john in time. Images of Barbara Walters naked is a good way to shoo wildlife or scare children, but it does nothing for prime time television.

The roster of Barb's interviewees sounds impressive, but she's just another Larry King. Softball questions for everybody. What's your favorite color? If you were an animal, what would you be? She interviewed everyone under the sun because no one was ever afraid to be interviewed by her. A Barbara Walters special meant a chance to peddle your own propaganda, and Barb was happy to help you out.

Barb's little show tonight did prove that the media think they are bigger than any story they cover. Hate to break it to you Barb, but you didn't create anyone, no matter what Charlie Gibson's soundbite says. Sure, you created a few more talking heads, but they would have kissed someone else's butt to get there, anyway.

No, other people did the big deeds. You only got the follow-up.

Debating Steyn

Last night, I watched Mark Steyn's debate with the Osgoode Hall law students, and it went about the way I thought it would go: Steyn quoted a lot of stats to back him up, the students quoted his writing which they say is Islamophobic, and once in a while Steve Paikin told them to quiet down and play nice.

On the facts, I think Steyn is correct: a government agency should not be telling a writer or a magazine what to write, or what not to write. If someone finds a piece of writing offensive, then they should write their own stuff. Prefer TV? There's You Tube. Radio? Blog Talk.

The students have it that Maclean's is playing unfairly because they won't publish an article by a writer of the students' choosing. But the students' rules are unfair in the extreme: the editors of Maclean's will not be allowed to edit the piece in any way beyond a spellcheck. What's more, if Maclean's does not run the piece, then the students vow to take them to the government's Human Right Commissions who will force the magazine to print it.

That stinks. Anyone who doesn't see that it stinks is a fool. Think about the precedent that would set: print this, or else the government will get involved, and they'll tell you to print it.

One thing that struck me about last night's debate was how naive the students are. When one of them said Maclean's has a huge readership, and Steyn told them that they have a website, the students scoffed. Their point is, Maclean's is a magazine and a website doesn't hold up, so Maclean's must publish the piece.

Well, that's not the way the publishing world works. I wish it did. I would like nothing better than to tell editors that they must run a piece of my writing. But those aren't the rules I was raised on. I was brought up to believe that you have to write something worthy of printing in order to find it in a magazine, and even then, you might not get between the covers.

Editors worry about newsworthiness, and the bottom line. Now and then they even care about the quality of writing. They also worry about their reputations. Maclean's might have a big readership now, but imagine that readership if people knew that Maclean's was a mouthpiece for special interest groups. An unedited opinion piece is not an article, it's an advertisement.

Another thing that struck me is that these students weren't true "students" from the old days. All right, they're law students, so that makes them automatically suspicious. But still, whatever happened to not ratting on anybody? "Print this or I'll tell teacher." Lame. Their legal bills would have been better spent on hiring a name writer, having them write a piece, and submitting it to Maclean's. The mag would have printed it, of that I am pretty sure: Mark Steyn (name writer) against so-and-so (name writer). Now it's gone too far. The students have painted Maclean's into a corner, and there's nothing the magazine can do but say no to anything with the students' fingerprints on it.

The students have elevated the maxim of human rights to its logical conclusion: all the world's a court, and those of us in it merely defendants. Give this man a job, or I'll tell the government. Give this lady wheelchair access, or I'll tell the government. Don't talk mean to minorities, or I'll tell the government. Be nice to women, or I'll tell the government. Print this article, or I'll tell the government.

We're teaching our kids to become sissies and tattle-tales. I don't know what kind of impact that's going to have later on in life, but it's got to have some ramifications. I don't think they'll be good ones.

I was looking at Mark Steyn's blog, and he had this to say in a post-game write up:

We didn't go for dinner, but we did have a relatively pleasant conversation after the broadcast that I thought was much more productive than the show. Khurrum was a bit chippy but the two ladies, Muneeza Sheikh and Naseem Mithoowani, are rather cute, even when they're damning me as a racist and hater. (Years ago, the BBC used to keep putting me up against humourless Marxist feminists only to find that on air I'd go all sweet on them and just make goo-goo eyes.) One confessed to finding me "mildly funny", which I took as a tremendous compliment until she remarked that she found "Little Mosque On The Prairie" funnier. Evidently by "mildly funny", she sets the bar down at world-champion limbo level. Heigh-ho.

That rings true. I once wrote that all of the people that say they "hate" George Bush don't really hate him. They hate his ideals, but they don't hate the man. Unfortunately, they can't draw that distinction. Over dinner, the people that hate Bush would have a pleasant enough time. I've had drinks with people that I previously despised, only to find that while I don't agree with them, I can still carry on a decent conversation with them across the bar.

I'll bet the students don't hate Steyn now after having met him. They disagree with him, but they don't hate him. I also think it very telling that after meeting someone whom they call Islamophobic, they hang around the set to have a chat. If you truly hated someone and thought they hated you because they're a bigot, would you chat them up and tell them they're mildly funny?

And that's why we don't need the government in our lives, telling us what to write and how behave. We can take care of ourselves, thank you very much.

I know it's hard work, but if you want to write, then write. If you want to meet people on TV and debate them, then work your ass off for a year and get on the program. Lately, I've been reading a lot of people saying that Steyn is a high school drop out and an ex-DJ. That sounds a lot like sour grapes to me. Since when was a high school diploma or any vocational background a prerequisite for writing? I don't know what people think writers do for money until they become full-time writers, but I can assure them it isn't writing. Writing doesn't pay jack until you get syndicated. Until then, being a DJ is as good a job as any.

I think the high-school-drop-out stuff is jealousy, pure and simple. You're not getting published, but Steyn is? Sorry, it means he's a better writer than you, and he's had some luck to go with it. Tough.

If the students had worked as hard on their writing as they have on these complaints, they'd be in print now. They claim that filing these complaints was the only way to get on TV. They said last night, "If we didn't complain, we wouldn't be on this show."

Really? Is this the only option you had, to open the Pandora's Box of government and let the suits fly? Or was this simply the easier, new Canadian way?

Tell us, but do it in writing.

NBC's Bonehead Editors

The amount of stock footage we see on a daily basis would probably boggle your mind.

I've edited tons of video, and in a pinch, I sometime have to reach for the stock footage. Let's say a guy is talking about an auto accident, or an emergency room, but I need footage to cover. No problem. I reach for the stock DVDs, flip to the medical chapter, and select one of three dozen clips showing an ambulance on the move, or a gurney being rushed through the hospital doors, or a paramedic taking someone's pulse.

When you watch Iraq war stories on the evening news, I can virtually guarantee that you're seeing a lot of stock. When a reporter talks about how many soldiers have died in the last week, the footage you see over top of her voice was almost assuredly not taped in the past couple of days. It's an impossibility. The reporter probably never sees with her own eyes half of the images that you see on your television. It's old footage, gathered together, labeled, and put on the shelf for another day. And they never tell you that.

This is especially true of live broadcasts from the field. While the reporter is talking, all kinds of images are placed before you. If she's talking about soldiers, you'll see soldiers, and if she's talking about civilian deaths, you'll see crying children. When was the footage shot? Good question. Maybe last week, or maybe last year. If the producers are feeling a bit guilty, and the footage is very old, you'll see "file" written in the corner of the screen.

In a nutshell, this is why editors don't trust the evening news. They know that a certain amount of grey obscures every news story that has stock footage in it. The stock footage, in fact, is probably the most important factor in determining how an audience will react to a news piece. Trouble is, there's no way of knowing when the footage was captured, or even where it was shot, unless they tell you.

Stock footage allows you to add some visual aids to what's being said. It adds impact. Unfortunately, it also gives you the chance to lie, or be exposed as an idiot.

Who Knew?
Take this recent news piece from NBC, about a girl marching across the North Pole. Of course she's doing it for global warming, and NBC's peacock logo in the corner of the screen is green to prove it. The stock footage in the piece shows ice collapsing into the sea. One problem: I've been to Alaska, and I know glacial ice when I see it. I've filmed it more than a few times. Glaciers have been "calving" for eternity, pushing ice into the sea, where it crashes and bubbles with great dramatic effect. It was obvious that the editor was using blue glacial ice for coverage. But in this NBC news piece, no mention is made of glaciers and, added to the global warming sound bite, we're led to believe that this is ice is falling off the North Pole because...?

Problem two: the news piece is about a girl crossing the North Pole. So why in hell are there two shots of penguins standing around on ice floes? The story shouldn't have been about global warming, it should have been about this girl's miraculous discovery that penguins have migrated thousands of miles north, and NBC was on the scene to record it.

The editor of this piece needs to have his head examined. If you're going to use stock footage to make a point, at least make sure it's from the right end of the earth. Moron.

Revenge Came In Pinstripes

Man, what's going on with Yankee/Red Sox fans?

Last month, a guy buried a Red Sox jersey in the new Yankee Stadium, hoping to curse the place. Last weekend, Ivonne Hernandez - a Yankee fan - literally buried a Red Sox fan after running him down with her car.

Apparently a bunch of people were at a bar when things got ugly. One report says that the woman told a group of locals that she was a Yankee fan. ESPN has it that the woman had a Yankee bumper sticker, and that kicked things off. In any case, a group of Red Sox fans chanted "Yankees suck" at the woman, and she ran one of them over in the parking lot. He later died.

She's currently in the joint. More on the story here.

Smooth Move, Speed Racer

Right up there as one of the best headlines I've seen in my life:

Police: Motorcyclist flipped bird, popped wheelie, crashed

COPIAGUE, N.Y. (AP) - A Long Island man who flipped his finger at a police cruiser and then popped a wheelie on his motorcycle is recovering from injuries after crashing.

Suffolk County Police said Frank Patti, 26, of West Islip, rode by the police car at a service station in Copiague at 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Police say Patti made an obscene gesture to two officers in the car, popped a wheelie and then sped away.

Police gave chase.

When the motorcycle turned into a parking lot it crashed into a police car that had joined the chase.

Police said Patti was treated for minor injuries at Southside Hospital. He's charged with fleeing police, resisting arrest and several traffic violations.

He was being held for arraignment Monday. Police did not know if he had an attorney.

Ellen Burstyn - The Stone Angel

Ellen Burstyn has popped up in a new flick called The Stone Angel, based upon the book by Margaret Laurence.

I never had much time for either of the two Canadian Margarets: Laurence and Atwood. Their names conjure up memories of Mrs. Clatworthy's English class in high school, or the Feminist Anthropology course in university. In the feminist class, I was the token straight dude that the professor used to stir things up. The prof knew I didn't mind, and so she would ask a question like, "Why do all lipstick ads imitate oral sex?" Then she would ask me for my opinion first, so the rest of the class could gang up and hammer me for any answer I gave.

So no, not much time for Margaret Laurence. As a writer, she's fine at her craft, but as a topic of literature, she's a beer drinker's land mine.

For all that, I'll still be interested to see The Stone Angel, if only to get another look at Ellen Burstyn ply her trade. She's been one of my favorite actors since The Exorcist scared the hell out of me as a kid, and it's been interesting to watch her battle for what all actors crave: longevity.

In that sense, the title of this new film is apt. Burstyn's done better than most in weathering Hollywood's storm. She hasn't been relegated to pure B-list status, hovering just below stardom, but above has-been. Like all aging actresses, she's had to fight for parts that don't script her as "grandma" or "wise neighbour," and she's done well at it. The reason is simple: she was sexy, but never a sex symbol, and so aging didn't do in her bonafides.

I'll see if she still has it. The Stone Angel opens on May 9th.

Photo: Alliance Films

Iron Man - Review

Director: John Favreau
Written by: Too many
Starring: Robert Downey Jr/Gwyneth Paltrow

As far as super hero movies go, Iron Man hits on all cylinders. It has the flawed lead character, the disaster that leads him to become a super hero, and the arch enemy whom he accidentally helps to create.

What is it with super heroes? Before becoming a hero, they have good friends and a decent life. After becoming heroes, they discover that their entire life has been a lie and that most of their friends are sell-outs. Super powers might make a man larger than life, but they also lead him straight to the therapist's couch.

In Iron Man, a very good Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark, weapons designer and multi-billionaire. Stark was born to tinker with gadgets, and we're told that as a teenager he graduated suma cum laude from MIT. A few years later, he began designing super weapons systems and selling them to the US military. Government contracts. Gold mine.

Downey plays the character well, though how much of it is make-believe is anyone's guess. Downey's off-camera substance abuse episodes are well known, but he certainly isn't ashamed of the reputation. Iron Man is only another in a line of films in which Downey plays a character that chases women, swills scotch, and lives the life of Riley. Perhaps Downey plays these parts because he misses his days of wild excess, or maybe he's still living his days of wild excess and uses the movie roles to hide in plain sight.

Early in the film, Downey is captured by Taliban-types, who force him to build a rocket which they can use to destroy their enemies (as usual, terrorists in Hollywood movies can only be the bad people they are in life when used in a fantasy movie). The resourceful Stark turns the tables by creating a metal suit loaded with rockets. He uses the suit to escape from his enemies, and once back in the US, he develops an even better super-suit to crush his opponents.

Alas, back in the States, he also develops a conscience. And here is where I have a problem with the film.

A little backstory: before seeing the film, I saw the preview for the new Indiana Jones flick. Harrison Ford is back as Indy, and he is kicking ass as usual. The entire Indiana Jones trilogy is built upon one thing: fun. And that's what you get. Hero movies do not need what Hollywood calls "character arc," which is all the rage these days.

Today, every screenwriting book has a section on character arc, and the section tells you that a character must learn and grow. So the character's "values" at the beginning of the film must change to the opposite "value" by the end of the story. If the value does not change, these books say, then the film is flawed.

And I couldn't disagree more. Sure, it does add to dramas and romantic pieces, but in hero stories, the character arc theory should be regarded with deep suspicion, otherwise you're going to do what hero stories never should: beg the audience to feel sorry for the hero, and to see him as a real person.

In hero stories, I don't want to see a real person. In the Indiana Jones films, there is not one bit of character arc and, to the horror of writing teachers everywhere, the movies still stand up. At the beginning of a Jones adventure, Jones is a smart ass that can beat people up. At the end of a Jones picture, Jones is a smart ass that can beat people up, but this time he's also got the girl and the treasure. No character arc. No problem.

In Iron Man, I saw it coming a long way off, and I wasn't disappointed. Stark returns home after being captured by the terrorists. Immediately, he knows that he can't build weapons anymore because weapons are bad. Instead, his company's going to produce...well, something, but he'll think about that for the sequel. In the meantime, he's going to build a better Iron Man costume so he can beat the hell out of people that have weapons.

Huh?

Super heroes that preach pacifism are a laugh, because super heroes are violent. That's how they settle scores and save the day: with their fists. A super hero with violence gives you, "Truth, justice, or I'll kick your ass." A super hero without violence gives you Kofi Annan.

I get why Iron Man was written the way it was. The culture today demands heroes be against violence and death, otherwise they're seen as warmongers. But the absolute telegraphing of "character arc" does me in every time: Stark builds weapons, bangs five women a week, and drinks a lot, therefore by the end of the movie I know he will attend Woodstock IV, fall for a nice girl, and start taking responsibility for his life. Give me a break. Hollywood is so afraid of men these days that anything masculine must be brought to heel, and shown to be wrong and misguided.

The film looks very good. The effects are great, and the actors are fine. Gwyneth Paltrow seems a little misplaced, as if she walked onto the set and someone said, "You busy today?" Watching Paltrow play an exceedingly secondary role is a bit strange. Every few minutes you're wondering if her career is flagging, she needs the cash, or both.

See Iron Man for the good effects and the fighting/flying scenes, as well as Downey's good one-liners. Don't see it if you want super hero fun without a phony message.

Photos: Yahoo Movies