The Last House On The Left - Review

Director: Dennis Iliadis
Writers: Alleca/Ellsworth
Starring: Sara Paxton
Runtime: 100 minutes

I don't know what it would take for a movie to get an X rating these days. The Last House on the Left proves that violence won't do it.

This is a remake of an old Wes Craven horror flick by the same name. In many ways, this new treatment harkens back to the exploitation horror flicks of the '70s. The lighting is blue, the colors are muted, the characters don't have neatly primped hair, and marijuana makes an appearance as "grade A" stuff for teenagers. One of the evil characters is named Sadie, a name that always reminds me of Sadie Mae Glutz, a member of the Manson "family," so this added to the '60s/'70s vibe.

The movie's about the Collingwood family. Daughter Mari (I looked it up - in this movie it's Mary-with-an-I), is having trouble connecting with her parents because she's a teenager and because her brother has died. So the trio go to a house on the lake to enjoy some family time. Ten minutes after arriving, Mari wants the keys to the car so she can go visit a friend (this is probably the truest part of the movie - teens on family vacations don't wait three seconds before taking off from the family). Mari joins up with her friend, they meet a stranger, smoke pot, and then meet the stranger's homicidal lunatic family.

I just noticed there's a lot of the word "family" in the above paragraphs. Maybe the movie's going for a social statement.

In any event, Mari and her friend Paige are brutally assaulted and one of them is brutally raped. I mean brutally. And here's where I figure you can't do anything to get an X rating anymore. The viciousness of the assaults and rapes is cold and dreadful. This is probably the grimmest movie I've seen in a while, and it got me thinking about a line from a movie critic some time back: "What's the point of all this shit, anyway?" I guess the gore movie fans would say, "Well, it shows that raping young girls is brutal and mean." Okay. Fine. But was there ever any argument about that?

The final scene between the father and the lead killer is the definition of gratuitous. The movie is already over, nothing more to see here, folks, and then out comes the microwave. For what?

If you're a horror junkie, you might like this movie. But then, this movie isn't really a horror flick. It's a violence flick. Mari is raped, and after that it's a just battle between two families to see who can mutilate each other the worst. There's no suspense or horror, but there's plenty of gore. Since that doesn't turn me on, I was just left saying, "Gross. But who cares?"

Terminator Salvation - Review

Director: McG
Writers: Michael Ferris/John Brancato
Starring: Christian Bale/Sam Worthington
Runtime: 114 minutes

For weeks I heard that this movie wasn't worth seeing. I had accidentally-on-purpose stumbled across some movie reviews and the majority of them were bad. The complaint seemed to be that the movie had no story, sacrificing plot for effects and gimmicks.

I mulled over waiting for it to come out on DVD and finally decided to see the thing. It was, after all, a Terminator movie. I wasn't in the mood for a story. I was in the mood to see things get blown sky high. So I went and saw the movie and I came out thinking, "What was so wrong with that?"

Not much. If you haven't seen it, it's better than you think. The no-story complaint is one of my favorite hobby horses, but I wasn't expecting a decent story from Terminator Salvation. For one, it's a story about time travel and killer robots. For another, it's sequel number 4 in a franchise that will probably have sequel number 5. Story? From that?

Well, okay, here goes: the year is 2018. John Connor is finally all grown up. In the first three Terminator movies we had to watch him grow from an embryo in Linda Hamilton's womb (Terminator - she finds out she's pregnant), to a teenage smart ass (Terminator 2 - he befriends the Terminator and has a good cry when Arnold bites the dust), to a twenty-something loser trying to save the world but can't (Terminator 3 - where he hooks up with his high school crush and watches the world get nuked).

That's a pretty hectic childhood. Anyway, Connor is now a weathered adult and he's played by Christian Bale. The world is a vast wasteland and the machines have taken over. The machines hold dominion over everything and are hunting down the last remnants of mankind. This shouldn't be hard to do because the humans still have fighter jets and airline hangars, but what the hell. Maybe they're taking their time.

Connor is a general of sorts in the Resistance. He knows that he has to save his father's life, otherwise his father will never go back in time and get Linda Hamilton knocked up so that Connor will be born, grow up to watch the world get nuked, and be around to save his father's life so that his father can go back in time...so forth.

Story?

Thrown into the mix is Marcus Wright. He's a newbie resistance guy and he steals the show. In fact, Bale shouldn't really be listed as the "star" of the movie, since Wright (played by a very good Sam Worthington) has 75% of the scenes. But Bale's got a bigger name and that's life.

I found Worthington's character interesting. Some time in the writing stage of this movie, someone decided to throw Connor's character under the bus. That's interesting because the entire franchise has been about Connor. Yet in the one installment where we should see Connor in action, he takes a back seat to a newcomer. This seems suspicious, as if there were arguments over who would play Connor, and whether or not Bale even wanted to play Connor. It smells of a rewrite. I'll never know the truth of that, but it turns out that the producers made the right call either way: Worthington is good and his character makes the movie fresh and watchable.

I can't go into Worthingon's character or I'll blow the whole movie, but I will say that he is Terminator Salvation's salvation. I found myself wishing that Connor had been deleted from the script entirely in order to spend more time watching Marcus Wright.

The effects in this movie are good, and the cast does a reasonable job. It was nice to see Michael Ironside again, though his character is meaningless. Like the other Terminator movies, the film is ultimately preposterous: time travel, people surviving a punch in the chest from a machine (picture being hit by a crowbar compliments of Barry Bonds; think you'd get up?), open heart surgeries being practiced by MASH units in the middle of the desert. But still...it's fun.

That's what I wanted from this action movie and it's what I got. If you're in the mood for that, then this movie is up your alley. If you want high brow sc-fi, then good luck. You won't find much of that these days.

Photo: Rotten Tomatoes

Foreign Oil

The US House of Representatives, determined to obliterate the American economy, passed their whacko "green bill" by a close vote yesterday. Time and again I heard the words, "To keep us from being held hostage by foreign oil."

Neverminding most of the junk in the bill, and all of the lunacy that comes from trying to scale back an economy during a recession, the one thing that bugs me is the "foreign oil" bit. McCain and Obama both harped about it during their campaigns, and many politicians have used the, "Importing oil from people that don't like us very much" excuse, or as one guy said yesterday, "People that fly airplanes into our buildings."

For the record: Canada is the number one provider of US crude and petroleum imports. Nobody else even comes close. Though the numbers fluctuate for imports from other countries, Canada always tops the list. Mexico generally comes in second, with Saudi Arabia around second or third. Last year, the US imported 2.532 million barrels of petroleum per day from Canada. That's more than double Mexico and Venezuela combined, and roughly 1 million more barrels per day than Saudi Arabia. That's a lot of petroleum. And a lot of money for Canada.

So I'm guessing that by "people that don't like us very much," the American politicos mean Canadians. Which, if you read a Toronto Star op-ed, is understandable. But it's time to give it a rest on the Middle-East-Oil-Bogeyman.

It's also time for Canadians to give it a rest on the Obama Love. Every time you turn around, the guy's trying mess up the Canadian economy. Buy American came first, now it's "Wind over foreign oil."

Canada is the foreign oil.

Fade to Black - Michael Jackson

When I was a kid, I loved Michael Jackson. Before his descent into madness, me and my friends thought he was not just the King of Pop, but the King of Everything.

I have a few very distinct memories of Jackson back in the day: me, Phil, and Sean, choreographing a routine to Billy Jean for the elementary school play. I think I remember rousing applause. Then there was me, Timmy, and Sandy choreographing more than a dozen routines in Timmy and Sandy's backyard. We were playing "music video," complete with a director (Tim), choreographer (all three of us), and an audience (Sandy's dog and - for thirty seconds - Sandy's older brother).

We didn't have a malt shop when I was kid. Instead we had a variety store that held two video games. We used to go there, hang out, and play video games all the time. There was this one guy who was the best video game player in town. He was a few years older than me, had a beard, wore a leather jacket and ripped jeans, sported an earring, drove a dented Camaro, and looked mean. His last name was Roc and it wasn't made up. He scared the hell out of me. One time I was watching him play Galaga or Pac Man and we got to talking about music. He told me, "You know who my favourite entertainer is? I bet you'll never be able to guess."

I tried the usual skid suspects ("skids" were people with long hair that listened to heavy metal; I don't know if they're still called that): Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Judas Priest, so forth. He said, "Nope. My favourite entertainer is Michael Jackson."

I was floored. This was heavy stuff. Not only did he like Michael Jackson, but he was willing to admit that he liked Michael Jackson. To give you an idea of why this was a big deal, fast forward a few months. I was hanging out in the smoker's pit of the high school. Someone brought up Roc. I was stupid enough to say that Roc's favourite entertainer was Michael Jackson. One skid girl told me that Roc was going to kick my ass for saying that, and another guy threatened to do it himself. For a week I walked around wondering when Roc was going to descend and beat me to a pulp. Never happened. That's character.

It occurs to me now that I think that was the first time I heard someone described as an "entertainer" in the true sense of the word. Roc had brains. He knew the difference between heavy metal entertaining and pop entertaining, but he knew that they were both entertainment. I wonder if Roc became a critic.

One other childhood memory: Sandy and Timmy were the first kids in the neighbourhood that had a copy of the Thriller video. I waited and waited for them to invite me over to see it. But, like kids with a pool, they knew they had a trump card. They would mention the video now and then, or talk about their favourite parts, and I would be left standing there, wishing.

Two or three weeks went by. I wished and I wished. This was in the days before 34505 channels on TV, and the only showbiz show was Entertainment Tonight. So I had probably seen only three or four Thriller previews and commercials, leaving the thing a big mystery rolling around in my head. I wanted to see it so damn bad.

Finally they showed me the video. They sat on the couch and feigned boredom while I watched in wide eyed wonder. It scared me. It thrilled me. I loved it.

Everybody did. Anyone who said that they didn't like Thriller was a liar. And Roc was right: Jackson was a great entertainer.

I lost touch with Jackson and his music after that. Black or White was the last song I really paid attention to, and that one only because an English teacher wanted to dissect it during a writing class. Jackson had begun to turn weird. Freaky weird.

Years later I was watching a Michael Jackson concert on DVD. I had wandered into a girl's room and she and her friends were loving it. I didn't get it. He was a freak. His face was a mask, his body a stick. He looked ill. While watching the video I made some comment that he looked like a freak. I got kicked out of the room. So Jackson still had it, but he didn't have me.

It takes a lot to overcome child molestation charges. Jackson settled out of court with a teenage boy to the tune of millions, but people still loved him. So who's more weird? The fans that were ready to line up for his "comeback tour," or Jackson? American Idol recently had a "Michael Jackson night," where the singers had to perform Michael Jackson songs. You kept hearing the word "legend," as in, "Michael Jackson's a legend, so it was hard to pull that song off."

Legend? Really? I don't think so. Not anymore. If his career had ended at Thriller, his legendary status would be undeniable. Instead, I think his legacy will be one of a strange celebrity that couldn't handle it. Endings mean more than beginnings. Jackson's ending sucks. A man that liked to sleep with teenage boys, wear surgical masks everywhere he went, and had his face chopped into something unrecognizable to a mother. He didn't release any studio albums in the last eight years, leaving the public to judge him not by his music, but by what he did with his life. Over the past decade, the music stores have been flooded with Jackson "greatest hits" albums, the last of which was the "Celebrating 25 Years of Thriller." Man how the time flies. 25 years since he looked normal. 25 years since I thought he ruled the world.

The old line says that poor people are crazy, rich people are eccentric. Jackson certainly proved that. If he had been a door-to-door salesman, nobody would have wanted to be within 100 yards of him. But he was a celebrity, so dangling babies from windows and sleeping with boys wasn't such a big deal.

Weird. That will be Jackson's legacy. I'd say it's sad, but it's not. Again, if a door-to-door salesman acted the way Jackson did in the latter part of his life, you'd shed no tears for him. So I guess I'll give you a very slight pass if you say, "It's about the music," but you won't get much from me if you say it's about the man. Or what was left of him.

The Proud City

There's a commercial making the rounds about the 29th Annual Pride Week. At the end of the commercial, an actor (posing as 'some everyday guy,' but they're always actors) bleeds euphoria and says, "Look how far we've come. Look how far this city has come."

Indeed. 29 years ago, Toronto was an epicenter of racism and bigotry, chock full of knuckledragging Klan members. You couldn't move without running into a bigot or being assaulted by a neo-Nazi. 29 years later, the city has parades. Look how far we've come.

In other news: About 24,000 unionized city workers walked off the job this morning, setting the stage for garbage pile-ups, closed daycare centres, cancelled summer programs and even the postponement of weddings.

I guess the city union guys ain't so proud of how far the city has come.

The Sound of History

I've spent a lot of time reading about Nazi Germany. Sometimes I've found myself wondering what it would have sounded and looked like to have been there. The audio of this report made me think of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass. While that happened over sixty years ago, this is now happening in Iran. Take away the car alarm, and it's probably as good a hint as any.

"Sean, why do always go on about Nazi Germany?"

Your answer:

Pride

Pride Week is in the news in Toronto. I think it used to be called "Gay Pride Week," but they dropped the "Gay" and kept the "Pride." I'd love to think that's because we're all in this together: the Happy Mosaic. But, being a card carrying pessimist, I figure it has to be for more commercial reasons. When you call something "Pride Week," it can mean anything for anybody. Easier to sell Coca-Cola that way.

On the Pride Week website, the logo is the gay rainbow flag, overlaid by sketches of a person in a wheelchair, a protester with a picket sign, someone doing a handstand (Dancer Pride?), someone leaning on a cane with their other arm reaching upwards (Old Man Picking Peaches Pride), a robust person standing with hands on hips (Umpire Pride), and someone else jumping in the air, microphone reaching to the heavens (Van Halen Pride). Though all of the sketches are outline drawings of white figures, I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that they didn't mean to underscore White Pride. Imagine the riotous news highlights from Yonge Street, as old men with canes beat neo-Nazis about the knees while people in wheelchairs scrambled for cover by mowing down drag queens.

Underneath the busy all-inclusive logo are the words Can't Stop. Won't Stop. Can't stop what? Doing handstands? They don't say. One thing that has stopped are the protests. The protester in the logo looks like something from a bygone era. There are no more protests at Gay Pride - er, Pride Week.

I hate lame slogans. Just because Barack Obama rode to victory on a vapid "Yes, we can!" deal doesn't mean it has to become a trend.

From the website: "Can't Stop, Won't Stop is the most important element for our fearless unstoppable partner organizations that create the most vibrant cultural diversity of Official Pride Week Events in our LGBTTIQQ2S communities are taking place with the spirit of Pride during the Festival" said Frank Folino, Official Pride Week Events Coordinator.

LGBTTIQQ2S? No, it's not another flu, a la H1N1. I'll let Mark Steyn explain: "Well, apparently:

LGBTTIQQ2S means "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Transgendered, Intersexual, Queer, Questioning, 2-Spirited..."

"2-Spirited" is, I believe, a bisexual Native-American, rather than "too spirited" as in Anne of Green Gables.

Look, let's be real: LGBTTIQQ2S is probably the funniest thing I've read in weeks. It's trying so damn hard that it's a laugh. You can't say it. Can't pronounce it. Can hardly read it. When you have to copy and paste your handle for fear of spelling it wrong every time you hit the keyboard, you know something's funny about it. Intersexual? What, exactly, is that? The only part of the label that I get is the "questioning" part, as in the question, "Are you serious?"

I remember at school that there was an outfit called GBLAM. The first three letters stood for Gay, Bisexual, and Lesbian. Simple. To the point. Easy to remember, in a Marvel Comics kind of way: "GUH-BLAM!" They must be having fits with their name nowadays.

The website says there's a lot going on this week. There's the Pride Parade, the Dyke March, and a street fair. And more: "Celebrate Pride Toronto with art and music with a noon hour performance by 2009 Honoured Dyke Faith Nolan..."

Sounds like a blast.

There is one thing that might attract me to the once-protesting-now-celebrating festivities: Maple Pictures and Pride Toronto invite you to be one of the first to see the soon-to-be lesbian classic "The Baby Formula" and have a chance to party with the stars! Setting aside the desperation in "soon to be classic," any hetero dude would love a chance to party with the stars from a lesbian movie.

Poor Gay Pride Week. It used to be a way to tell The Man to stick it. Now it's lame. The website trumpets that Pride Week "is ranked as one of the TOP 50 festivals in Ontario by Festivals and Events Ontario." Yay! Can't stop, won't stop!

Consider me Questioning. Query: "Does Ontario have 50 festivals?"

Update: The answer is yes, and then some. They now have a top 100 list. The Tulip Festival is numero uno. Bummer.

The Best Show On TV

All right, so that's not a hard honor to win. But still...

The wreck at 4:50 makes my highlight reel every time.

The New Order

Without a doubt, this is the most frightening piece of writing I have read in some time. It's called Special Report to Parliament: Freedom of Expression and Freedom from Hate in the Internet Age. It's written by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. You may remember them from the news.

I read this document and my dread increased with every word. The document is in response to the recommendations of a Professor Moon. He was hired by the commission to look at their Section 13 rule, whereby a person can be prosecuted for inciting hatred or contempt on the internet.

None of the people running the CHRC are elected officials. The Canadian Human Rights Code (of which Section 13 is a part) is not a section of the Criminal Code. It is outside and above the law.

I searched through this document and saw dozens of sections that I wanted to copy, paste, and talk about. In the end, I would have had to copy and paste the whole thing (I think this is against copyright law, which doesn't scare me nearly as much as these people do).

The people at the CHRC are strange Canadians. Very strange. They write about their "Code" as if it is Law. And, truth be told, it might as well be:

The dual approach ensures that there are two distinct tools that can be used to deal with hate on the Internet:

First, the criminal law, to deal with situations where the person posting hate does so with criminal intent and therefore is deserving of punishment by way of fines or incarceration. The Criminal Code is the most severe mechanism that can be used to deal with any problem in society. Its necessity is undeniable. However, the prosecution, incarceration and stigma that can flow from the criminal justice system are not necessary to deal with every situation.

That is breathtakingly bold. A government agent is telling Canadians - the report's on the internet; it's not a state secret - that there are now two Criminal Codes. One is harsh. The other is nice. One is for crimes that are so heinous and obvious - ie, provable - that the law is required. Others are more squishy. To see them, you must be able to see clearly. Like these government agents do.

The report tells us that the Criminal Code is a "necessity," but that it causes stigma. And so, ladies and gentlemen, allow us to present the New Law. The Nicer Law. We're doing this for your own good, don't you see? You may be found to be a racist for what you say, but not to worry: we don't hate you. We pity you. We are soft, warm, and understanding. We will perfect you. Make you whole again. There is no long-term stigma. When you give thousands of dollars to the person you've offended, you are making recompense. Penance. When your name is published in the papers and you're identified as a bigot, you are helping yourself because you are helping society. We are all together now, part of the same broad tapestry. You save one life, you save the world entire. We are saving the world from you. And you'll feel better for it. Your shame will disappear once you see that we were not stigmatizing you. We were saving you.

And O'Brien said to Winston, "You must humble yourself before you can become sane."

Incidentally, was there ever any argument that the Criminal Code was a necessity? It's disturbing to ponder what was going through the head of the hack who wrote that. "Its necessity is undeniable." Who denied it? And note the "however" right after saying how necessary the Criminal Code is. Necessary. But not quite good enough.

You're probably not scared yet. Don't blame you. Maybe you don't blog, maybe you live in the woods, maybe you never say anything to another human being, ever. But try this on for size:

The requirement for proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a basic principle in criminal law. The requirement is particularly difficult in prosecuting charges under the hate provisions of the Criminal Code.

For example, in the recent case of Her Majesty the Queen v. David Ahenakew, the Court found that although the accused had made public statements about Jewish people that were "revolting, disgusting, and untrue," he could not be convicted because it was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to promote hatred against Jews.

The difficulty in proving intent may explain why so few cases have been prosecuted and even fewer have resulted in convictions.

On the other hand, intent is not relevant in the human rights law context where the focus is on the messages themselves and their impact on their targets. Pairing the CHRA with the Criminal Code allows the flexibility to deal with cases where intent does not exist or cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

If you are any kind of Canadian, you should be sitting bolt upright in your chair saying, "What the hell is that? If they can't prove something, they'll just use the other rule book?" I also love their reasoning for why so few hate crimes have been prosecuted. It's not because Canadians aren't a bunch of bigots. It's because the rules make it too hard to lock the bigots up.

The CHRC believes the the Criminal Code is insufficient for prosecuting crimes of the mind. They literally say reasonable doubt is a concept that must be overcome. It's there in black and white. In order to circumvent two great tenents of Canadian law (mens rea - the guilty mind - and reasonable doubt) the commission simply throws them out the window. No votes, no referendums, no arguments on Parliament Hill. They just do it.

Who knew writing law could be so easy? Members of Parliament are no longer required. Voting is a moot point. Make up your own laws and, if you don't like them, change them:

The requirement for the consent of an Attorney General was likely included in the law as a safeguard against frivolous prosecutions. However, some police and Crown prosecutors are concerned that this requirement unduly hampers prosecutions. Professor Moon also expressed concerns in this regard.

Professor Moon recommends that this matter be considered further and that if it appears that the consent requirement is a barrier to the prosecution of serious hate propaganda cases, the Criminal Code be amended to remove this requirement. The Commission concurs with this approach.

Scared yet? Check it out: an unelected government agent with great power now wishes to attain greater power by not only writing their own rules, but doing away with the rules in the Criminal Code. This doesn't jibe so well with a statement just a few paragraphs before: The Criminal Code falls outside the Commission’s jurisdiction, hence, the Commission will not make specific recommendations for change. Uh, you just did.

This is brazen material. Remember that this a report to parliament, the people that supposedly draft legislation. A committee of unelected people is telling the "leaders" of the country that their laws suck. Change them. Don't you know what's good for you?

Surely there's one or two elected officials with enough wherewithal to say, "Hey, jackass. We represent the people, and we write the rules. I didn't go through months of mudslinging on the campaign trail to listen to you tell me a damn thing. By the way: you're fired."

Their disrespect for the law is clear. Their contempt for parliament and Canadian culture and history is unquestionable. But that's not the worst of it. For people that declare being on the side of "human rights," they have a funny way of showing it. Note the candor above: "The rule guarding against frivolous prosecutions is getting in the way of prosecuting people. Scrap it." Protect the little guy from harm? To hell with that. Change the rules so we can pound the nails in a little deeper.

This isn't about protecting anybody. This isn't about you or me. It's about power. Pure power. And I can think of no greater power than running your own law enforcement agency while telling elected officials which hoops they should jump through. That's heady stuff. It must be euphoric. Imagine the ego it takes to tell parliament that everything's fine on our end and, by the way, here's the list of things we need you to take care of for us. No questions asked.

Professor Moon and others raise the concern that the mere filing of a complaint, even if it is ultimately dismissed, can have a chilling effect on freedom of expression; that is, that people may refrain from posting something on the Internet out of concern that someone might file a complaint. Whether such a chill actually exists cannot be proven [bold mine]. Nonetheless, the Commission does recognize that there is potential for a "chill" scenario to arise.

Consider it proven. Believe me.

Palin

Politico: Governor Sarah Palin paused Friday afternoon in front of a monument bearing the Declaration of Sentiments, an early feminist touchstone.

“We anticipate no small amount of ridicule,” she read, and remarked: “Some things never change.”

I am under no illusions: the hit job done on her last year by much of the press and virtually every "feminist" has probably killed any White House hopes. But I still dig her. She went through hellacious treatment and came out with her head up.

Great Line

That creepy Harper's Island show was on in the background and I heard the line of the year:

"Yeah. The bastard left me in here with a rotting corpse."

Beauty.

Steyn In Haiku

I was reading Steyn's latest travails about his writing and the people that hate that he's a...er, hater.

Anyway, since this story has become more and more like farce, I say it's time to have fun with it. And so...Steyn in Haiku. For backstory on this stuff, you'll have to click on his link above and go through it bit by increasingly bizarre bit. More Steyn in Haiku are always welcome.

Mark Steyn's bigotry
Outraged trio assemble!
No cash? No Sheikh. Shit.

*****

Mark fronts Bushitler
Ezra says, "Attaboy, Steyn."
Top bestsellers: two.

*****

Sinatra is King
Elmo sucks. So do Beatles.
Demographics? Yes!

*****

Quotation Mark's up.
"Human rights?" Don't make me laugh
Fart me a lawsuit

Crazier Things Have Happened

Jake Tapper quoting...somebody. Can you guess who?

[He] was asked at the National Press Club, "given recent events in Iowa and elsewhere, is some form of legalized gay marriage inevitable for the United States?"

"I think that freedom means freedom for everyone," [he said].

“I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish. The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute to protect this, I don't support. I do believe that the historically the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level. It has always been a state issue and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis. ... But I don't have any problem with that. People ought to get a shot at that."

That would be be Dick Cheney.

So lemme get this straight: lefties hate Bush and Cheney, but love Obama. Yet both Bush and Obama say that marriage is between a "man and a woman." And now here's Dick Cheney saying gay marriage is all right, as long as the states get to make the rules. At a stroke, this pleases the states-rights conservative crowd, but throws a hefty bone to liberals, a bone that even Obama himself won't toss.

Imagine. The Prop 8 crowd's heaviest hitting political ally turns out to be a man they absolutely despised for the past 8 years.

GLBT's for Cheney in 2012?

No. That would be crazy. Never happen. Never.

Drag Me To Hell - Review

Director: Sam Raimi
Writers: Sam Raimi/Ivan Raimi
Starring: Alison Lohman/Justin Long
Runtime: 1 hr 39 minutes

This is the horror movie I've been waiting for. Funny. Silly. Moderately gross. Fun. Fun. Fun.

In this flick, Sam Raimi shucks his Spider-Man cloak and goes old school, back to his early days of directing spooky horror flicks that contain enough thrills and gags to put the girlfriend in your lap and laughter in your mouth.

It's been a long time since I clapped during a movie. I probably clapped a half-dozen times during this one: "I can't believe he just did that." Hilarious.

The movie's about Christine Brown, a loan officer at a small bank. A gypsy woman comes in and wants an extension on her loan before she loses her house. Christine, bucking for a promotion, decides to prove she's a hardball banker. She turns the gypsy woman down. So the gypsy woman curses her to three days of torment before a demon will come and drag her into a pit of eternal fire and damnation.

Wow. Maybe Raimi was looking to give homeowners some catharsis in tough economic times. "Take my house? Burn in hell. Literally." Take that, AIG.

The movie's story is as thin as paper, but it doesn't matter. It's all been done before. Why anyone would anger a gypsy woman is beyond me, because we all know that anyone with a glass eye and missing teeth is in league with the devil. The devil, of course, must be short of cash because gypsy women can't afford anything better than a rundown fixer upper from hell. But just try to take that fixer upper away...

There's a number of great scenes in this movie. The fight scene (yes, fight scene) between Christine and the gypsy woman is an insta-classic. It reminded me of how fun Sam Raimi used to make his horror flicks. Another scene where a tormented Christine visits her fiance's parents is a beauty.

When Raimi can't scare you, he goes for the gross out. Watch out for a few scenes involving maggots, worms, a decidedly unappetizing cake, and a kitten. A kitten? "I can't believe he just did that." The movie even has a seance and a talking goat. A talking goat? Come on, you know it's gotta be a good scene (Raimi fans will like the sound effects in the scene; the voice sounds a lot like the voices from Evil Dead).

For a modern day horror flick, the body count in this movie is ridiculously low. Raimi proves you don't need ten teenagers and a machete to scare people. The cast is small and all of them are good actors. The lighting is sparse. The visual effects are good. This is a stripped down flick that moves along so quickly you could be forgiven for thinking it's one of the previews.

This is a good, fun horror movie. See it.

The Thinker

I waited for it, and it came.

Peggy Noonan: Newt Gingrich twitters that Judge Sotomayor is a racist. Does anyone believe that? He should rest his dancing thumbs, stop trying to position himself as the choice and voice of the base in 2012, and think.

I suppose I'm in danger of being labelled "anti-intellectual," but that's all right. Really I am just amused at the amount of times words like "think" and "thought" and "intellectual" are appearing in columns coast to coast nowadays.

Take Noonan's piece above. It takes about four or five paragraphs to make an entrance, but it finally shows up: Peggy thinks. Peggy's friends think. People that disagree with Peggy? They don't think (or live in the "world of thought," if you hang out with Chris Mooney, or embody "Spock's passion for reason," if you're a chum of Jeff Greenwald, or do the "work of thought," if you're related to Joe Klein, or practice "intellectual honesty," if you break bread with Krauthammer, or have "intellectual force and energy," a la Rahm Emanuel, or act "intellectually serious," like David Brooks - funny, when you add them all up like that, it starts to look like a trend).

The condescension doesn't drip from Peggy's pen. She isn't using the "think" word as derogatory. Hell, she doesn't even use italics to show she really means it. Instead, her snobbish "intellectualism" is en passant. And that's the point: Peggy and her ilk are good thinkers. They aren't angered by people that disagree with them, they pity them. If someone doesn't see eye to eye with Pegs, it's not because the person is wrong, it's because the person just doesn't know how to think properly.

This trend started when Obama got elected. We are constantly told that he was a university professor and an expert on the US Constitution (by no less an authority than Barack Obama himself, who constantly reminds us that he got a degree and read the Constitution a bunch of times; me too, but his views on the document differ from mine. There I go not thinking again). After his election, "brain power" became all the rage. Everyone wants to point out who is brilliant and who is not. Obama tops the list. University professors come shortly thereafter. Writers for big (but going bankrupt) publications come in third. Then there's...everyone else. You and me. The dummies (unless you agree with them, in which case you're called an "informed voter" or a "base.")

A question: when is the last time you talked to a university professor and thought anything they had to say mattered worth a damn? For that matter, when's the last time you talked to a university professor? I was on a college campus the other day and it reminded me just what a cloistered life it is. Old buildings, faculty lounges, residences, classrooms, restaurants, bars, you name it. When I was in school, I rarely left the grounds. There could have been a hundred angry lions at the gate and I wouldn't have known it until summer. I might as well have been on the moon.

University professors only leave their sanctuaries when they interview on Charlie Rose, lecture at another university, or run for office. Out of touch? Sure. Out to lunch? You bet. You never see these people because they're about as far from real life as you can get. But they think, damnit. How do they do that? How can I learn it? What is this "think" of which they speak?

When I disagree with political orthodoxy today, it's not because I'm wrong, or crazy, or even stupid. I'm just not thinking. If I just sit down and think for a while, I'll be all right. I'll learn to see it the good way. The proper way. When will I ever learn to think?

Bending to Vick

The sports shows are slowly leaning towards a reinstatement of Michael Vick.

He was released from prison a couple of weeks ago and has given no press appearances, but the sycophants that make up the sports media are already bending. Funny, that. He doesn't even have to say "whoops" or "prison sucks," and already they're kneeling.

On Fan 590 I heard a DJ say, "I'm a dog lover, but..." He went on to ask his listeners if they didn't think that everyone deserved a second chance. A man called in to say Vick should be banned from life let alone football. The DJ repeated that he was a dog lover - "I've had my dog for 17 years and I'm quite attached to him" - and then used the old magic word: "but."

Vick's a scumbag, but...Vick's a criminal, but...

This afternoon on another radio show, I head two DJs interviewing a guy from Sports Illustrated. They asked him if Vick might find a place in the NFL. The SI guy demurred, unsure of anything, but then asked if Vick might find a place in the CFL. The DJs told him that it depended if Vick was suspended from the NFL, since the CFL now recognizes suspensions in any other football league (read: the NFL). So the CFL gambit is a non-starter as far as Vick is concerned, but doesn't it speak volumes that the three men were even discussing it?

Sports "journalists" have no shame. None. They'll forgive anything, no matter how immoral, to kiss a professional athlete's ass. Here's what I had to say about the Vick dog killings a while back. It pertains to the asinine "second chance" comments that sports "journalists" trot out whenever they need to give an athlete a moral makeover:

Remember that this was going on at his kennel, not in some parking lot on the outskirts of town. Vick wasn’t "caught up" in anything. He was chiefly responsible for it. The dead dogs are buried on his property. The kennel, incidentally, was bought by Vick in 2001 for a little over $34000. With a flair for prophesy, these clowns named it Bad Newz Kennels.

The sycophantic sports writers are in quite a dilemma over this. Dog beats athlete for America’s heart every time, and the sports writers are in a pickle. They are, after all, writers, not reporters. There is no such thing as a sports reporter. Like me, emotions run their version of typing. They have steadfastly refused to investigate steroids in baseball (have you seen Jason Grimsley’s name lately?), or football. While Barry Bonds cheats his way past Henry Aaron, the sports writers go whistling through the locker room as if nothing’s amiss. Now they have a problem: America likes dogs.

But sports journalists like players.

Let's read again what Michael Vick did to wind up in the joint:

In the most disturbing account yet of Michael Vick's dogfighting operation, a federal investigative report details how the disgraced athlete killed pit bulls by hanging them from a nylon cord nailed to a tree and drowned others in a five gallon bucket of water...Purnell Peace, who was convicted along with Vick, told federal agents how he, Vick, and a third man had to drown one dog after it did not die when they tried to hang the animal. After Vick agreed last year to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge, he was interviewed by federal agents and claimed that he "never actually killed a dog," though he admitted watching his friends hang, shoot, and electrocute pit bulls. But after failing an October 2007 FBI polygraph test "as it related to the killings of the dogs," Vick recanted his denial and "admitted taking part in the actual hanging of the dogs."

The "second chance" philosophy as it applies to Vick is an obscene lie. Second chances are reserved for people who do something once, regret it, pay for it, and get on with their lives. If Vick had wandered into a room, seen a dog fight for the first time in his life, and been caught there, I would be all in favour of a second chance. But that's not what happened. Instead, he bought a kennel for the purpose of setting these dogs on each other. He watched them be electrocuted. He saw others shot. Some he hanged with a nylon cord. One that we know of he helped drown in a barrel. He watched small dogs get used as "practice" for the fight dogs. Then he and his friends buried the bodies on his property.

Vick has had a hundred chances to change his ways. The only reason he didn't get to 101 is because he got caught and put in prison.

Former QB Jim Kelly was on the radio the other day and said that he would leave it up to the NFL to decide Vick's fate, but in no way would Kelly want Vick to be a member of the Buffalo Bills. Other teams should feel the same way and say so.

The NFL needs to decide if it is a truly a "league," and what kind of league it wants to be. If they allow Vick back onto an NFL football field, they will truly be the National Felony League. Their reputation won't be fit for dogs.

Fade to Black - Peter Zezel

I was watching Zezel last year when he was filling in as a co-host for the Hockey Central show on Sportsnet. I remember thinking that he sounded like a gentleman.

I don't know if I ever heard a bad word about Zezel from anybody. He was a good player (underused as a Leaf, but I'm not a Leafs fan, so what did I care?), and a class act. After retirement he ran a hockey camp for teens and he did a lot of charity work. The only knock I had on him back in the day was the hockey hair mullet he carried around.

I remember the controversy surrounding his retirement. His niece was dying of cancer and he asked to be traded from Vancouver to an eastern team so he could be closer to her. Instead, the Canucks traded him to Anaheim, as far west as the NHL can get. So he retired. I like that story.

It's hard to believe that the disease he was diagnosed with was still with him. Last year on the TV shows he looked healthy, with the post-retirement fat of an athlete that's found the joy of not working out three hours a day. Alas, hemolytic anemia had kept its grip on him for a decade. Recently it took a turn for the worse. He had surgery a few days ago and ended up on life support. He died on Tuesday, aged 44.

More here.

Hey, Would You Like To Talk About Singing For Our Legendary Rock Band?

“Amongst all that furor, there wasn’t really a quiet moment to talk,” May tells Rolling Stone in an e-mail interview. “But [drummer Roger Taylor] and I are definitely hoping to have a meaningful conversation with him at some point. It’s not like we, as Queen, would rush into coalescing with another singer just like that. It isn’t that easy. But I’d certainly like to work with Adam. That is one amazing instrument he has there.”

That's Brian May, Queen guitarist and frontman, talking about American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert.

Let's say you're sitting around in your living room one day and say, "You know, I think I'll try out for this American Idol thing." Six months later the guitarist of Queen is pondering whether or not to give you a job?

Not bad, buddy.

Water Bored

I've seen a lot of these videos over the years, but there's more of them appearing seemingly every week. This is another clip of a moderately famous person being waterboarded. In this case it's the radio DJ named Mancow.

He has the water poured on his face and gives up after a few seconds, proving how discomforting waterboarding is. Immediately after he surrenders, his co-host endlessly repeats "You're soaked." And that, it appears, is the extent of the lasting damage of waterboarding.



So, is waterboarding "torture?" I guess it is, because it would be "torturous" to go through it. But surely the fact that so many celebrities line up to be waterboarded proves how safe and untorture-like it is. In a strange way, these endless You Tube waterboarding clips show that waterboarding is like some kind of a goofy party trick: "Hey, Bob, how long can you balance a beer bottle on your head? Hey, Lou, can you drink beer while doing a headstand? Hey, Tony, how long can you last with water being poured on your face?"

US agents have never been accused of pulling out fingernails or electrocuting genitals. If they had, it's doubtful that Mancow and Christopher Hitchens would drop trow and say, "Light me up."

It's water. Being poured on your face. It sucks, and then it's over. So no one's afraid to try it. Then they thank their co-host and carry on with their day.

I doubt it's the effect these guys are going for, but they're pretty much proving that it's no big deal. Mark my words: you're going to hear about it taking place at a frat initiation very soon. Kids, schools, and waterboarding? CNN will have a field day.

Inglourious Basterds

Vis-a-vis Tarantino's new war-shoot-'em-up, Reuters has this to say:

Most of the dialogue is in German and French and translated with subtitles, possibly limiting the film's box office potential in the United States.

Sigh.

I hear that all the time from my film buddies in LA: subtitles are bad. Don't have a female lead. Black and white sucks.

All of these rules are a sham. All that matters is a good story, and that Holy Grail of film success: for some reason, people that want to see the movie.

Let's face it. Subtitles on a Tarantino movie will only make it seem more cool. Tarantino's fans will flock to see it. They'll stay up late, break out the French-German-English dictionary, and pore over every word to see if Big T is sending them a hidden message.

To Mel Gibson's credit, two of his last movies were done entirely in foreign languages and he won huge. The languages in his movies were so foreign that some of them haven't been spoken in hundreds of years. Here's his returns for the effort:

The Passion of the Christ: Budget: $30 million. Worldwide gross: $611,899,420
Apocalypto: Budget: $40 million. Worldwide gross: $117,785,051

So far, so good.