We went to see Avatar last night. It was alright. I could have enjoyed it a lot more, I think, but the movie theater was insanely loud, and I had to wear earplugs just to tolerate it. That really shouldn't be necessary, and it pisses me off.
Anyway, at cinemas lately they're playing an ad for the National Guard. It's over 2 minutes of heroic imagery of the Guard doing heroic things, replete with captions that tell us that the Guard never leave a soldier behind, and so forth, and a freaking chorus singing mostly incomprehensible lyrics, but eventually dropping in the line about not leaving a soldier behind. It's bizarre, over-the-top, certainly jingoistic. I'm really offended by ads for the military, because of their portrayal of military service and all this heroic movie magic crapola they fuse to the image of the soldier. Plus, this one is way too long, and the chorus bit is hilariously high-concept.
Speaking of hilariously high-concept, apparently somebody remade Clash of the Titans, which some will remember as the cheesetastic 1981 fantasy flick starring Harry Hamlin as Perseus. Part of what made the old film so amusingly bad was the corny animation bits, but really, the overacting by the gods was pretty cute, too. Plus, it has the lovely irony of having old film stars playing the gods - you know, a clash of the (movie) titans. Ha ha. The new movie has got to be on any reasonable person's short list of recent Things That We Don't Need At All. It looks like it's virtual-cheesetastic.
This morning I woke up with the start of lyrics for a song in my head, and somehow that led immediately to imagining combining the National Guard ad with Clash of the Titans. Now that's the movie we need.
See! The gods bicker, as Guard troops stand by awaiting orders, fidgeting!
See! The Guard sweep in to stop Medusa's attack!
See! Perseus battle the Kraken while the Guard builds sandbag floodwalls on the Mediterranean coast!
Showing posts with label entertainment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label entertainment. Show all posts
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Monday, September 22, 2008
some of these things are not like the others
Two timely items from the ongoing list of
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
18. Live theatrical performances. I just love 'em.
As advertised, we saw Cabaret in San Francisco Saturday night. It was terrific. At the end of August we hit the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for A Midsummer Night's Dream and Othello, which were also terrific.
But indeed, I have a history of enjoying theatrical performances even when they're not any good. Way back in college, UNC Charlotte hosted the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival every summer - the only free professional theater in the US at the time. Mainly the plays were excellent, the performances excellent, but every once in a while there was a stinker. There was a completely useless and bizarrely inept staging of a Tennessee Williams play one summer that I probably should have been thrown out of. It was great.
Live theater always gives you something. Sometimes it's of questionable intrinsic quality, but you still get it. And it's all happening right there in front of you, so if it's a train wreck, it's a train wreck, and nobody can stop it. That's thrilling.
17. Ironic political comeuppances. I just love 'em.
Turns out that John McCain's chief of staff is gay. So McCain, who is in favor of states passing constitutional amendments forbidding same-sex marriages, and whose choice for vice-president is a devotee of a bizarre hate-mongering religious cult, apparently either doesn't know, or doesn't mind that Mark Buse, his chief of staff, is gay. (It's unlikely he doesn't know, if, as has been reported, McCain has attended dinner parties thrown by Buse and his partner.) It's a level of hypocrisy that most people find objectionable, and frankly difficult to reach. But McCain is a talented guy.
Doc Nagel's Top 100 Things
18. Live theatrical performances. I just love 'em.
As advertised, we saw Cabaret in San Francisco Saturday night. It was terrific. At the end of August we hit the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for A Midsummer Night's Dream and Othello, which were also terrific.
But indeed, I have a history of enjoying theatrical performances even when they're not any good. Way back in college, UNC Charlotte hosted the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival every summer - the only free professional theater in the US at the time. Mainly the plays were excellent, the performances excellent, but every once in a while there was a stinker. There was a completely useless and bizarrely inept staging of a Tennessee Williams play one summer that I probably should have been thrown out of. It was great.
Live theater always gives you something. Sometimes it's of questionable intrinsic quality, but you still get it. And it's all happening right there in front of you, so if it's a train wreck, it's a train wreck, and nobody can stop it. That's thrilling.
17. Ironic political comeuppances. I just love 'em.
Turns out that John McCain's chief of staff is gay. So McCain, who is in favor of states passing constitutional amendments forbidding same-sex marriages, and whose choice for vice-president is a devotee of a bizarre hate-mongering religious cult, apparently either doesn't know, or doesn't mind that Mark Buse, his chief of staff, is gay. (It's unlikely he doesn't know, if, as has been reported, McCain has attended dinner parties thrown by Buse and his partner.) It's a level of hypocrisy that most people find objectionable, and frankly difficult to reach. But McCain is a talented guy.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
quick with the updatings, cuz tired
Back from a whirlwind trip to San Francisco to celebrate my loveliest's birthday. I had a sneaky plan all cooked up, to crash at an old teeny hotel and to go see Cabaret at the SF Playhouse. Cabaret was terrific. I think most people have only seen the rather tame movie version; this was something else entirely, and excellently done.
But I've still gots stuffs to do before class again on tomorrow morning. To read a blog with more actual content than this, do go check out my sweetest's entry concerning women's rights and the election.
But I've still gots stuffs to do before class again on tomorrow morning. To read a blog with more actual content than this, do go check out my sweetest's entry concerning women's rights and the election.
Monday, July 28, 2008
and now, incivility
With any luck, Emerson was actually right about something when he wrote that "foolish inconsistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." After having written about civility (to be precise, calls for civility, that is, demands for certain critical ideas to remain unspoken, as though criticism was always uncivil), today I have a question sparked by two recent news stories about radio asswipe Michael Savage.
(Obviously, I'm not interested in being civil toward him.)
The stories both concern protestors calling for Savage to be fired or his show pulled off the air because of some hateful, badly misinformed, deliberately and idiotically outrageous statement of his. Most recently, he claimed autism is over-diagnosed and the real problem many of these kids have is the lack of an abusive father. (Really, I am not making it up. Savage's concept of fatherly guidance is to tell his kids to not be morons.)
The punchline is, the program is losing individual advertisers, but not losing revenue. He's very popular. The market, in short, has spoken, and what it is saying is: There's a whole hell of a lot of people in the US who really love being lied to, very loudly, by abusive shitheads.
Therein lies my question. Is this what people want in radio entertainment? Where is the fun in it? I'm tempted, but resist, imputing that the pleasure is in having someone express one's hateful, asinine urges, a sort of Two Minutes' Hate by proxy.
My other question is how I can get in on this kind of action, because for Savage and Limbaugh and Imus and O'Reilly (and a bunch o' others) it's quite lucrative. I'm qualified, too: I can yell, I have irrational hatreds (mostly of the Philadelphia Flyers, but we can build on that), I could even write my own material. I think I have the vocabulary down, too: "moron," "destroying America," "nutcases," "whiners."
I'll work cheap, too, to start. I'll take $100,000 a year, and be happy with it! That's a big savings over a lot of the professional screamers out there.
(Obviously, I'm not interested in being civil toward him.)
The stories both concern protestors calling for Savage to be fired or his show pulled off the air because of some hateful, badly misinformed, deliberately and idiotically outrageous statement of his. Most recently, he claimed autism is over-diagnosed and the real problem many of these kids have is the lack of an abusive father. (Really, I am not making it up. Savage's concept of fatherly guidance is to tell his kids to not be morons.)
The punchline is, the program is losing individual advertisers, but not losing revenue. He's very popular. The market, in short, has spoken, and what it is saying is: There's a whole hell of a lot of people in the US who really love being lied to, very loudly, by abusive shitheads.
Therein lies my question. Is this what people want in radio entertainment? Where is the fun in it? I'm tempted, but resist, imputing that the pleasure is in having someone express one's hateful, asinine urges, a sort of Two Minutes' Hate by proxy.
My other question is how I can get in on this kind of action, because for Savage and Limbaugh and Imus and O'Reilly (and a bunch o' others) it's quite lucrative. I'm qualified, too: I can yell, I have irrational hatreds (mostly of the Philadelphia Flyers, but we can build on that), I could even write my own material. I think I have the vocabulary down, too: "moron," "destroying America," "nutcases," "whiners."
I'll work cheap, too, to start. I'll take $100,000 a year, and be happy with it! That's a big savings over a lot of the professional screamers out there.
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