I can't believe I've been so slack about posting...I think the problem is that there's *too* much that I want to write about, and I can't seem to pick out just one thing long enough to really do it justice. And, you know, my job and all. (Actually, I think I'll go with blaming the job. It makes me look borderline responsible.)
So, in no particular order, here are a few of the things that have been flitting across my brain today...
- Hey, look! It only took four years! Look for other rosy pre-war predictions to start finally coming true as well. U.S. troops will be greeted as liberators any day now, I'm sure.
- RE: The Mitchell Report on the use of steroids in pro baseball. Great work - I'm going to file it under "no shit" along with the "revelation" that Jodie Foster is gay. And then I'll go right back to ignoring the irrelevant, corrupt, train-wreck that is the MLB.
- I finally watched "Knocked Up" this week. Well, to be strictly accurate, I watched the first 16 and a half minutes of "Knocked Up" before ripping out of my DVD player. Seriously, Netflix is lucky they're getting this one back in one piece. After calming down and thinking on it for a few days, I've concluded that it wasn't just that I didn't like it - after all, sloppy, unfunny movies come out every day. Just like with my epic, ultimately fruitless campaign against "Titanic" back in high school, the real issue isn't my dislike for a film, it's my frustration with the people who insist that it's the best film of the year/ever made, etc. I feel like an Omega Man, screaming at the world full of Judd Apatow-loving vampire/zombies, "Did you people SEE the same movie I saw???"
When "Knocked Up" came out last summer, I actually heard more than one reviewer describe it as "sweet." Um, that's probably the last word in the dictionary that I would use. I've never seen such a collection of mean-spirited characters; even the little kids are nasty to each other. The way I see it, "funny" is a club. And if you're not in the club, if you don't speak the language, it's going to be hard, if not impossible, to find something funny. "Knocked Up" wasn't funny for me because I wasn't in the club - there wasn't a single character with which I felt any identification. I couldn't get a toe-hold, so when it pissed me off, the movie didn't get my usual benefit of the doubt. That's why I say it was sloppy. It's a filmmaker's job to give viewers that toe-hold (unless he's just making the film for himself. That's not art, it's a middle-schooler's post-break-up poetry.), to show them the secret hand-signals or whatever that will get them into the club, and it's really not that hard. Try writing dialogue that does more than just zing, like revealing character and motivation, for starters. "Anchorman" does more in its first 16 seconds than "Knocked Up" mangaged in 16 minutes.
And if I'm Julianne Moore, I'm finding Judd Apatow and kicking his ass. Seriously, if he pulled that shit on me he'd spend large chunks of his future crying like a baby.
- Speaking of movies, I saw a trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson's (didn't we used to call him "P.T."?) upcoming film, which stars Daniel Day-Lewis. I have no idea if it's going to be any good, but the title - "There Will Be Blood" - is just really cool. (WAY better than the title of the Upton Sinclair novel on which it's based: simply "Oil!")
- "There Will Be Blood" would make an excellent title for the game I'm most anticipating this weekend - not my Panthers vs. Seahawks, alas, but what I hope will be an epic smackdown for the ages: Patriots vs. Jets. This matchup was going to be sweet even before the revelation this week that the Jets have a few video cameras of their own. It was the whining of Jets coach Eric Boygini (he is not a man) in Week 1 that triggered what Bill Simmons has called the "F@ck You Season." The Patriots remind me of those serial killers who follow their own media coverage so closely that, when a reporter speculates that Killer X would never dump a body in Location Y, that's exactly where the next victim shows up. The Patriots run up the score? Okay, we'll take a knee at the end of the Colts game, just to screw with people. A certain Pittsburgh d-back, in his inexperience, guarantees a win? Okay, let's torch him for a few touchdowns. Bill Belichick strikes me as a person with a long memory and a sense of drama. I can't wait to see how many different ways he makes New York cry on Sunday.
While we're on the subject - why are the Patriots cast as the villains here? When Peyton Manning persuaded Tony Dungy to unleash the Colts offense so he could break Marino's single-season touchdown record (NOT because it was always the best way to win), I felt like the only person in America who thought the naked record-grab was unsportsmanlike. To begin the season, every Pats-hater with an ax to grind crowed that one rules violation negated three Super Bowls - as if Brady, Moss & Co. needed any outside help to beat a team that's gone on to win what, three games? All the Pats are doing now is definitively proving those yakking-heads wrong. And if going undefeated is unfair to the competition, why do we keep rolling Don Shula out to pop the champagne every year? Glorify winning, don't glorify it - all I'm asking is that we pick one and stick with it.
I can't think of any scenario more fitting than for the Patriots to match the '72 Dolphins, the same year that the current Dolphins fail to win a single game. I think that would be hilarious.
- Every now and then - okay, regularly - I have to explain to people why we still need to keep pushing feminism, when we've "won" so much. Seriously pisses me off - okay, first? We won what we have now because we fought for it! No one just gives away their power to an oppressed minority. Second - I don't give a shit what I have now that my mother or grandmother didn't, I want what any man has now. Don't frackin' pat me on the head and tell me to be grateful for what I have. Argh. *steam coming out of ears*
So, is feminism still relevant and necessary? Read about these recent cases, and you tell me: First, an Australian judge frees nine men who admitted that they'd gang-raped a 10-year-old girl. In Canada, Judge calls rape victim "stupid." And, before you get all self-righteous, in our own land of the free and home of the brave, some bloggers are questioning the claims of an ex-Halliburton contractor that she was raped in Iraq and that her employer covered it up. Hey, everybody's innocent until proven guilty. But why is rape the only crime where the victim is consistently belittled and held in suspicion? People commit insurance fraud every day by pretending to have been robbed or by burning down their houses, but if my house gets broken into I'm probably not going to have to worry about some a-hole Internet goon calling me "Murtha-esque" or "Beauchampian."
Well...Happy Friday - and don't miss any football!
No comments:
Post a Comment