The giant power blackout in the northeast reminded me of “The Trigger Effect,” a movie about an extended blackout in the Los Angeles area. It’s fairly cheesy (the cast includes Kyle MacLachlan and Elisabeth Shue, for god’s sake), but it’s still an interesting look at how thin the veneer of society really is. Take away something as central as power for more than a few days, and things could get ugly pretty quickly. Worth a rental.
Category: words mean things (Page 46 of 223)
Bob Roberts – bonus post
Talking about Gore Vidal reminded me of The Simpsons (although, to be fair, pretty much everything reminds me of The Simpsons, as my friend Michele is fond of pointing out).
Marge: So, did you call any of your friends?
Lisa: Friend? [scoffs] These are my only friends.
[holds up a book]
Grownup nerds like Gore Vidal, and even he’s kissed more boys than I ever will.
Marge: Girls, Lisa. Boys kiss girls.
Bob Roberts
This political mockumentary from the Gulf War I era is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. But Tim Robbins’ story of the folk-singing right winger running for Senate is sharply written, has tons of fun cameos, and reminds us how similar the issues and climate were then to today’s insanity. (When a newscaster started talking about “Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction,” I nearly did a spit take.)
This movie is eerily appropriate in the age of Dubya and Ah-nuld. Gore Vidal is especially good as dejected liberal Sen. Brickley Paiste, trying to fight the good fight against Roberts’ crowd-pleasing folk-singing fascism.
Highly recommended. And don’t miss the deleted scenes on the DVD edition – there’s a lot of meat there that didn’t make it into the final cut.
What a difference a week makes
Last week: Howard Dean on the cover of both Time and Newsweek. I am hopeful.
This week: Arnold Schwarzenegger on the cover of both Time and Newsweek. I despair.
Word of the Day
(inspiration: Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O’Reilly: “bill just wanted to say ‘terrorism’, because he’s a brain-dead jingoistic hate-monger who knows that his audience will lap up whatever 9-11 palaver he vomits out at them every night.”)
My condo association fee is $150/mo. For that we get crappy snow removal in the winter, and cleaning of the common hallways. That’s it. (Did I ever tell you about the time that I fell under my car after it got stuck in what I affectionately call the “bobsled run” at the mouth of the parking lot? Yeah.) The washing machines and dryers in the subterranean laundry room are $1.25 a go. We have no clubhouse, no workout center, none of that. For those of you out there living in condos, doesn’t that sound high? Just wondering.
I was a beta tester for TypePad, the hosted weblog system from the Movable Type folks. The fact is that I barely used it during the beta period, but from what little I’ve seen, it has a nice clean interface, photo galleries are included, and it seems relatively cheap for what you get. Plus it’s nice for MT-install-phobics like me to have a continuously-updated system to work on.
Because I was a beta tester, I have 20 discount codes to give out; each one entitles the bearer to a 20 percent discount on the TypePad service. If anyone wants a discount code, let me know by e-mail; first come, first served.
I’ve taken a lot of pleasure in changing my site tagline. But I’ve never used anything in the TITLE except “words mean things.” I decided to change that in honor of Fox’s unbelievable suit against one of my heroes, Al Franken. I love how all this insane suit will do is promote Franken’s book. You just can’t make this stuff up, people.
UPDATE: Fox Sues Michael Moore Over Use Of Term “Michael Moore”
“I’m just trying to get my points out there.”
-Porn star and California governor candidate Mary Carey, thrusting her decolletage toward the camera on “The O’Reilly Factor”
Here’s a serious question that occurred to me about the California recall election: Can someone tell me exactly why Arnold Schwarzenegger is considered a serious candidate, even the front-runner, and Gary Coleman is considered a joke?
S.W.A.T.
As soon as the first frame came on the screen, I was instantly bored. Hostages, bank holdup, automatic weapons, ski masks, helicopters, instructions shouted into walkie-talkies, yada yada yada.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is, this movie takes virtually every cliche about these kinds of pictures (hardass but wimpy Captain in the way, young hotshot with something to prove, sneering Eurotrash villain, ragtag team that comes through in a pinch, ad infinitum), spouts every cliche line of dialogue you could have written in your sleep if you’ve ever seen a movie before, and manages by the end to make for a fairly entertaining (if forgettable) ride.
I think the reason it ends up being entertaining is they serve up the mountain of cliches with an absolutely straight face. There’s not a bit of winking at the camera here, and that’s refreshing in a weird way – it’s like a pop culture triple-fake-out. Even its utter predictability made it somehow comfortingly fun (if you can’t spot the traitor in their midst, for example, it’s possible you *may not* have seen a movie before).
It’s no “Air Force One,” but it’s fun while it lasts.