More than meets the eye

One of the joys of Netflix is that, since it's a flat monthly fee, you can add just about any damn thing you like to your rental queue and not feel like you're wasting money. Last night, for instance, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I watched Transformers: The Movie, which each of us were pretty sure we hadn't seen in about 20 years. I would be hard-pressed to describe the movie as "good" in any conventional way, quite honestly, and I'd completely forgotten about the incessant, often thematically-inappropriate 80s synth-pop background music, and the vocal performances were downright strange. There's really nothing resembling characterization in anything but the broadest strokes, and there's not a plot so much as an overlapping sequence of things that happen, and some of the characters happen to be standing in the places where those things happen, and so on.

But She and I both thought that in spite -- or perhaps because -- of all that, the movie is also some kind of deranged work of cinematic ADHD genius. Because when I was 12 and saw this movie, I loved it. Loved it. Who cares that the characterizations are paper thin? A bunch of Autobots on the run from Decepticons who have been upgraded by an evil robot planet that EATS PLANETS crashed on the Planet of Junk (yes, that was its name) and fought the Junkions (robots made of -- wait for it -- junk)! And when some other Autobots eventually arrive on the Planet of Junk to rescue the first group of Autobots everyone dances to Weird Al's "Dare to be Stupid" before both groups of Autobots and the Junkions fly off to defeat the giant evil planet-eating robot planet.

Plot? We don't need no steenking plot. Transformers: The Movie is wonderful and perfect just the way it is; if someone had tried to make it a proper movie with a three-act structure and character arcs the whole thing would have been ruined. This movie is the equivalent of eating an entire can of chocolate frosting, and I mean that in a good way.

Live and learn

Witchblade is still being published. Who knew? During the dark days of my tenure at Mania.com, I occasionally had to read -- and I use the term very, very loosely since the comic consisted entirely in splash pages and large-paneled pages of Michael Turner's anorexic, slow-eyed pseudofemales with words sort of squeezed in wherever they could be fit. I have to wonder if the audience that read (or rather, bought) the comic then will have any interest in a new direction that's not "about the lead character's clothes miraculously falling off."

I must own this.

The Adventures of Superman is coming out on DVD. And I must own at least this first set, which includes the less campy first season of the show as well as the Superman vs. the Mole Men movie. That's a lot of good stuff for under forty bucks.

On the use of the paper shredder as an instrument of political protest

Josh Marshall presents a reader's first-hand account of an anti-Social Security rally that would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Scratch that, it's funny AND pathetic.

The art of the deal

Rewatching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, I'm struck by how fortunate it is that the Weasley twins were born into a wizarding family, since it means they deal harmless magical pranks to younger students, instead of drugs.

Best. Wife. Ever.

So I saw one of the sneak preview screenings of Serenity last night. And I saw it entirely through the good graces and benevolence of the woman known to readers of this blog as She Who Must Be Obeyed. You see, we were unable to get tickets online, so I had the brilliant, or possibly deeply, deeply geekish, idea of standing outside the theatre before the screening with a sign advertising our need for tickets. She Who Must Be Obeyed thought it was worth a try, and last night around an hour and a half before the screening we set out for the theatre, and I stood there with a sign and She Who Must Be Obeyed stood there with the guy with the sign.

About three minutes after we got there a guy in a Firefly T-shirt said he had one extra ticket. And while I was inclined to pass, since there were two of us, She Who Must Be Obeyed insisted that we buy it from him: one was better than none, and worst-case I could go see the movie and she could come pick me up when it was done. My arm thus twisted, we bought the ticket. And we continued to stand in front of the theatre with our sign altered to read that we now needed one, not two, tickets.

A second ticket never materialized, so She Who Must Be Obeyed sent me into the theatre to see the movie. This despite the fact that it was she who, way back in 1998 or so, introduced me to Joss Whedon's world of characters who get under your skin and stay there. So today I am compelled, as an insufficient gesture of thanks, to tell the Internets that She Who Must Be Obeyed is the Best Wife Ever, and that last night's display of generosity far, far above and beyond the call of matrimony is merely my latest reminder of why She Who Must Be Obeyed is also the Best Wife Ever.

Spoon!

If you're enjoying the nightly reruns of the long-gone-from-the-airwaves Tick cartoon on Toon Disney, check out these custom Tick action figures. Anyone remember when people were paying hundreds of dollars for a Man-Eating Cow action figure?

Newsworthiness

I've mentioned before that I grew up in Scranton, PA, and I was fascinated to read about a bizarre domestic incident involving the area's Congressman a few months ago. I didn't realize until talking to my father on Sunday, however, that the local newspaper is only now covering the story, and apparently had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing to. Nice district if you can get it.

I was also amused to read that the Congressman and the young woman in question met at a Young Republicans meeting. You can't make this stuff up. Or rather, you could, but then your editor would say something like "Leave that stuff to Carl Hiaasen" or something.

More Schmospotting

Another update on Joe Schmo actors: Steve Mallory, AKA Ernie the Heir on Joe Schmo 2, is a cast member on VH1's mildly diverting and amusing series BSTV. From the original JS, Kristen "Dr. Pat" Wiig can be seen in TV ads for Time Warner digital telephone service. Lance Krall, also of the original Schmo, has been headlining his own sketch comedy show on Spike TV. Of The Lance Krall Show I can only say two things: Apparently everyone will have their own TV show on Spike TV someday, and it's an interesting change of pace to see a Playmate of the Year doing sketch comedy.

Cruisin'

David Poland puts his finger on the sheer ick factor of the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes coupling:

Tom Cruise is acting like a guy who walked into the casino, won huge, and is on a losing streak. The smaller the stack gets, the more desperate he is to play bigger and bigger amounts to get back the winnings he has "lost."
[...]
A 40-year-old man marrying a 24-year-old less than two months after they met is desperate. There is no other appropriate word. It doesn't matter if you are Tom Cruise or if you have a movie coming or whatever else.

Listening to a report of their engagement, at a press conference a reporter floated the question of whether they got engaged at the Eiffel Tower and they confirmed. Fuck! There is no way that was not a set up. The reporter was told and given the opportunity to ask the question, rather than Team Cruise sending out a press release. Double fuck! The reason so many people think it's movie promotion is that it has all the hallmarks of something so obvious that it can only sustain for a few months, like a movie promotional scheme.

I'm generally not one to take much of an interest in the private lives of celebrities -- I think the Brad'n'Jennifer divorce is sad, and the emaciation of Lindsay Lohan downright tragic, and that seeing such happenings as anything other than real events happening to real people is kind of unhealthy -- but Cruise's recent antics are making me rather irritated with myself for enjoying so many of his recent movies and thinking he was maturing into a really interesting actor.

Nope...

Somehow Giant-Size Spider-Woman doesn't have the same ring to it as Giant-Size Man-Thing. It doesn't even have any extra oomph for the hyphenation fetishists who must be out there somewhere.

My visual dictionary

Someday, when I am a tenured nonagenarian professor rattling around an ivory tower somewhere, I will create a visual dictionary of the English language. And under the listing for "unintended consequences" I will put a picture of a man who, having spent twenty minutes trying to get silicone caulk to come out of a tube, steps on it, covering his favorite sneakers in said caulk, which he then spends over an hour trying to clean off of them, and in the process gets some of it on various household items and the refinished hardwood floors, which then must likewise be cleaned off.

Might take more than one picture, actually.

Once more for the record

Terry Schiavo was not abused:

An autopsy on Terri Schiavo backed her husband's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding that she had massive and irreversible brain damage and was blind, the medical examiner's office said Wednesday. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused.

And recovery was impossible:

"The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain," he said. "This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."

I look forward to apologies and retractions from the amateur neurologists who spent months baselessly accusing Michael Schiavo of abuse, murder, and worse.

Boosterrific!

The Comic Treadmill takes a look at some early issues of the fondly-remebered Booster Gold solo series. I note in the comments on the entry in question that the 25 issues of Booster Gold would just fit into one of DC's just-announced black-and-white DC Showcase collections, as would the Blue Beetle series of similar vintage...

Dewberry

She Who Must Be Obeyed and I have decided, after watching the first three episodes of Gordon Ramsay's hilarious FOX reality show Hell's Kitchen, that the name "Dewberry," sported by the show's requisite obese, probably mentally deficient contestant*, should be turned into a general term of derision. For instance:

• "Sorry it took me so long to buy milk, dear; there was a real Dewberry in front of me in line at the store."
  
• "Police suspect a neighborhood Dewberry is responsible for the rash of garden hose violations."
  
• "Exit polls show that the president's re-election can be attributed to a high turnout among Dewberrys."
  

You know, that sort of thing. Feel free to leave additional uses of the term "Dewberry" in the comments.


*This phrasing, or something very close to it, is shamelessly stolen from someone or other on Best Week Ever.

(Incidentally, how on earth does Gordon Ramsay have the time to be the greatest chef in England? He's doing this series, and BBC America has run, I think, three Ramsay series and counting, and even if his books are all ghostwritten, when the hell does he have time to run multiple restaurants?)

Peter Falk reads STAR WARS to his ailing grandson

"And every time Darth Vader said 'As you wish' to Grand Moff Tarkin, what he was really saying was 'I love you.'"

Did anyone, ever, enjoy high school?

One reads about a story like this and wonders if high school administrators go to a special center to have their brains removed, or to have their heads inserted into their own asses. Perhaps the first, then the other:

Thomas Benya wore a braided bolo tie under his purple graduation gown this week as a subtle tribute to his Native American heritage.

Administrators at his Charles County school decided the string tie was too skinny. They denied him his diploma, at least temporarily, as punishment.

The bolo, common in contemporary American Indian culture, is not considered a tie by his public school in Pomfret. If Benya wants the diploma, he will have to schedule a conference with the administrators.
[...]

In March, Benya's high school sent a letter to parents and seniors explaining that "adherence to the dress code is mandatory," with the word mandatory in bold and underlined. For girls: white dresses or skirts with white blouses. For boys: dark dress pants with white dress shirts and ties.

That left Benya's classmates free to wear bright orange, red and striped ties under their gowns at the ceremony Wednesday at the Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro. One senior girl wore a headscarf and long pants for religious reasons.

I went to a Jesuit high school where the graduation attire consisted in tuxedos for the boys and white dresses for the girls. Which made the whole thing look like a Moonie wedding. There was a pro forma "vote" on whether to wear that or traditional caps and gowns each year, which vote was always rigged or otherwise disregarded by the administration; my senior year, we were told that if we did vote for caps and gowns, we wouldn't be able to wear caps because -- I kid you not -- they could put someone's eye out when they were tossed. Perhaps the most outrageous thing about the situation was that the guys' tuxes were provided free of charge by a local company hoping to scare up prom rentals, while the girls all had to buy the exact same dress. Dumbassery, I think, is endemic to those whose chosen path in life involves being a high school administrator.

Mythology, Schmythology...

...when Fox is done making DVD sets collecting all of the "mythology" episodes of The X-Files, can we get a few sets dedicated to the more off-kilter and light-hearted episodes of the series? You know the ones I mean: "Conundrum," "Jose Chung's From Outer Space," Duchovny's first two directorial efforts, that sort of thing? And end it where the series should have known enough to stop, with the second-last episode of Season 7, which would have been a perfectly good coda to a series that had been amiably coasting since the season's midpoint.

Things I have learned in the last ten minutes

You cannot say "wang" in a Saturday Night Live rerun on E! without having it bleeped out, even if the rerun is airing at a later hour than that at which the episode in question was initially aired. Every Ladies' Man sketch ever done is now 60% less funny.

An open letter

Right Honourable Tony Blair
10 Downing Street
London, England

Dear Mr. Blair:

Last night I watched the programme Green Wing on BBC America. It had been advertised as a hospital comedy, similar in tone to the superb American series Scrubs. However, this was a blatant lie, as Scrubs is funny and Green Wing is not. It is, in fact, like a humor Dementor, in that the show seems actively to suck whatever comedic instincts or abilities the actors and scripts may have initially possessed into a Lovecraftian nethervoid. I would go so far as to say that the show was so bad that it came off as an imitation of Scrubs made by someone who cannot tell why the Joe Don Baker film Mitchell is a bad movie and William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. is a good one, but instead thinks they're very similar in quality because they are both set in Los Angeles and have car chases in them. Similarly, both Scrubs and Green Wing take place in a hospital and involve set pieces, deliberately nonrealistic behavior, and absurd situations and characters. But on Scrubs such things are accomplished with charm and wit and panache and emotional truth, while on Green Wing they are done with shrieking and stupidity and clumsiness and every single word uttered by every single character on the show rings false, including "the" and "and."

As you are the democratic leader of the United Kingdom, I would like you to give me the hour of my life I wasted on this show back.

I remain, etc. etc.

Ditko!

Salon has a neat piece about Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko, hands, and the sheer weird rightness (or right weirdness, or both) of his art. (Via Tony Isabella.)

Shatner? I hardly know 'er!

I suspect the upcoming DVD release of T.J. Hooker may signal that Shatnermania has jumping of the shark. Of course, I probably said the same thing about the release of the Encyclopedia Shatnerica, so what do I know?

Monochrome

Superhero costumes are often garish mixes of clashing colors -- just look at the Golden Age Green Lantern, with his bewildering combination of red, green, purple, and yellow, or Vibe's blindness-inducing original yellow, red, and black fighting togs. Some heroes get around this with sensible color combinations -- red and blue (Superman, Spider-Man, the Atom), green and black (the Green Lantern Corps), two shades of the same color blue (Green Arrow, the Blue Beetle).

Others, though, take a monochromatic approach: If a costume is all one color, it HAS to match!

We've got the original Ray, who dressed all in yellow; his son opted for a mix of yellow, white, and black, but was back in a variation of the original suit for Kingdom Come.

Also in Kingdom Come, we saw the Blue Beetle don metallic armor that was entirely one shade of blue.

For most of his career, Daredevil has worn a costume that's entirely red. Elektra has tended to wear either all red or all white, depending (I think) on whether she's alive or dead at the moment.

The Golden Age Robotman was entirely silver, and each of the Metal Men was all one color.

On the Justice League cartoon, Amazo started out as gray before turning golden.

I'm sure there are folks out there I'm missing. Anyone have anything to add?