Movies in 2006

My consumption of movies really dropped in 2006, and I've gotten nowhere near any prestige pictures, but I did stumble into some worthwhile films.

There were some popcorn movies I thought were seriously great, most of which made no money. Casino Royale and Pirates of the Caribbean both made money with plots that actually required people to pay attention to keep up, which was somewhat inspiring. I got excited about a theme park ride movie sequel of all things, and after 40 years, finally a movie worth mentioning in the same breath as Thunderball. Then there was Slither, an absolutely hilarious horror film seen by eight people. I found the long-awaited Miami Vice to be very engrossing in its recreation of the good and the bad of the original show, and I was just recently raving about District B13.

Then there was Borat and Jackass, both of which were hilarious and significant achievements for the respective creators. I didn't think the Jackass franchise could ever build on the first movie, but they really did a fantastic job of finding new, stupid ways of exploiting the human capacity for Schadenfreude. Borat is something I never thought could support a 90 minute narrative, but it's amazing how much I bought into Cohen's performance. And going back to his roots in Clerks II sounded like a desperate, career ending move for Kevin Smith, but that movie was the funniest thing I've seen in ages.

There was some slightly more sophisticated material mixed in there, such as Kinky Boots, the true story of one man's dream of creating stiletto heels for men, and the supremely suspenseful Hard Candy in which a teenage girl sets a castrating trap for a pederast, and the black comedy Thank You for Smoking. And I still think the jokes aimed at keeping the parents awake in Hoodwinked were funnier than did the whiners who came out saying, "Hey, this isn't Shrek!" Inside Man was a fascinating heist movie, and I found The Prestige absolutely gripping.

Some of the failures were interesting in their own right, where the plot of The Illusionist left me a little underwhelmed, the recreation of a long since vanished Vienna and the whole style of the production were worth seeing. Similarly, the production design and use of color in Ultraviolet was visually a whole lot of fun, even if the movie barely distinguishes itself from your average video game movie. V for Vendetta really takes the prize though as a movie worth seeing just so you can imagine it done better, or just to study in detail everything surrounding the
main characters, like Stephen Rea and Stephen Fry, or the extremely moving conclusion when all of London takes off their masks.

The crown jewel so far is without a doubt The Depahted, which is the sort of film so great that it automatically lifts everyone in it to another level. It's like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, Anthony Anderson or Vera Farmiga can do anything now and still point to this film on their resume... I'm just saying, when they put together the Oscar dead people montage, Anthony Anderson's clip will be from this movie and not Romeo Must Die. Leonardo Di Caprio finally has the film that finally lets him joke about Titanic, because he's finally out of its shadow, and it's good enough to win him an Oscar. Martin Scorsese may finally win a best director Oscar, although history suggests he'll lose to an actor turned director for a movie nobody will remember in ten years, so De Niro will probably win for The Good Shepherd, a far more Important Film, or Clint Eastwood will get yet another lifetime achievement award for Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, so the Greatest Generation can be honored some more before the last of them die out. Anyways, The Depahted is still the best film I've seen since Brokeback Mountain, which I gather certain people living in Near North are still afraid to see, lest it provoke long-buried feelings in them, and they might find their fingers wandering towards the closet door...

Timberwolves 101 - 82 SuperSonics

I arrived late, a little smashed, because of the dangerous combination of a busy sushi chef and an attentive waitress. Waiting forever for food with an abundant supply of alcohol made me late and pretty spaced out. So really I have no idea how the Wolves jumped out to a commanding lead over the Sonics, I just know that Seattle continued to get their asses whipped for the rest of the game as well. Most of the game is really a blur, but I remember Ricky Davis scoring a lot, while the people I would have expected to feature prominently, Kevin Garnett, Randy Foye, and Ray Allen, had undistinguished evenings.

By the way, you may know Ray Allen from the 10 minutes he spent as a Timberwolf on draft night in 1996 before we traded him and a center to Milwaukee for a self-obsessed headcase (oops) or for his feature film career. His film career may have only consisted of two movies, but it was still better than Shaq's. In Spike Lee's He Got Game, which is a simply fantastic movie, Ray Allen played a high school basketball phenom ironically based on Stephon Marbury (the guy we traded him for), and he also appeared as a basketball player in Sarah Michelle Gellar's lone attempt at adult drama, Harvard Man. That was significantly less fantastic than He Got Game, which was Spike Lee's long-awaited homage to New York basketball, which sold me on both Denzel Washington and Mila Jovovich.

Even after a blow-out win, the Timberwolves are still a sub-500 teams wasting a league MVP's talent, and as far as Seattle goes, well thank god they're not the Grizzlies, huh? That's a good way to sell taxpayers on a new arena in Seattle, barely winning half your home games.

Banlieue 13, aka District B13

District B13 reminded me of an earlier era in American popcorn films, when they were immersed in the popular issues of their time. Night of the Living Dead, Dirty Harry, or even When a Stranger Calls, while by no means subtle political films, all tweak the wider emotional concerns of the society they were created to entertain. Now, the American films are all soulless copies of those earlier films, cashing in on the name without understanding anything about why these films captured anyone's attention. There are certain exceptions, Drew Barrymore seems to have known what she was doing when she promoted making the first Charlie's Angels film. But usually it's something like "Let's remake When a Stranger Calls, only instead of using a familiar suburban setting to play on everyday fears, let's put it in some billionaire's remote mountain aerie that will look cooler on-screen!"

Anyways, District B13 uses the rising tension of the banlieues as inspiration for a story set in Paris' grim future. Most of the point of the movie is to create opportunities for really cool fight scenes, gun battles, and open running stunts, not to delve deep into the social issues, but it does help that it's about something. The banlieues of this film are walled off as France has finally just given up on a segment of society, leaving them to a feudal existence under the thumb of criminal slum lords.

The opening action sequences feature David Belle, credited with creating the sport of Parkour, in a series of open running stunts escaping from drug-running thugs who control the banlieue. Belle is pretty impressive, moving through an urban landscape efficiently without regard to niceties like stairs or doorways. This sets an energetic tone in the same way Belle's friend Sebastien Foucan made Casino Royale instantly memorable with his free running stunts. (Exactly how free running diverges from Parkour remains a mystery to me.) Belle and Cyril Raffaelli are definitely entertaining in their various escapes, and in the severe beatings they dish out along the way.

The actual political comment of the film is over the attitude of its two protagonists. Leito (Belle) has given up on any faith in the society outside the banlieues or their values, and instead relies on his own fists, trying to protect the people in his building by force. Damien (Raffaelli) is a cop who believes in a grand, uplifting French society, and that he is responsible to see that everyone follows the law that makes that possible. The two of them must find a neutron bomb that has slipped into Banlieue 13 under mysterious circumstances. Leito cynically believes that this is no accident, and the bomb is intended to wipe out the undesirables of the Parisian underclass, while Damien believes such a thing is impossible, and just product of the hatred and paranoia of Leito's environment. Leito's chilling response, that 6 million were murdered for not having blond hair and blue eyes, so why think exterminating 2 million in Banlieue 13 is unimaginable, is the real sign that while this may be at heart a popcorn movie, it has wrapped its fluffy entertainment value around a kernel of something more serious . This film was also produced before last year's riots, making predictions that things were going to get a lot worse before the end.

I really enjoyed it, but I am a complete sucker for anything with Luc Besson's name on it. And to come full circle in this review, the only films associated with him I haven't enjoyed were the American attempts to remake his films, Taxi with Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah, and even worse, Point of No Return .

Timberwolves 100 - 98 Bulls

The Timberwolves took a 15-20 point lead early and used that cushion to weather any runs by the Bulls for most of the rest of the game.  They'd start getting sloppy and the Bulls would start closing the lead, and the Wolves would make a run of their own and pull back.  Then deep into the fourth quarter, they somehow managed to let the Bulls make up 20 points and tie the game 98-98.  It came down to a nice set play with 7 seconds left, setting up a tricky jump shot banked in by Randy Foye, and a defensive stop to clinch it.  Andres Nocioni's whining he was fouled on that shot blended in with the rest of his whining.  After blowing a lead like that, and the way Hinrich penetrated the wolves defense at will, there's a lot of cause for concern.  The Bulls on the other hand, went 9 for 12 in December so far... with two of those losses coming to the Timberwolves.  Karmic retribution for certain Near North front-runners, I suppose.

WJWYD?

This started with a couple simple questions about Julius Caesar and Julia Child, but it's really been weighing on my mind. I'm not sure which is dumber, the original question or the fact that I'm putting so much thought into it. So which Jules would you do?

• Julia Roberts - Sometimes in the wrong light the way her skin clings to her naked skull makes her look a bit like Skeletor, and I find that to be a bit of a drawback. She also used a body double in Pretty Woman because apparently with her clothes off, she's very much not. So really, when she's getting ready for bed with the mud mask and cucumbers over her eyes, wouldn't you start thinking "How do I get rid of you?"
  
• Julia Stiles and Julie Meadows - I still keep mixing these two up. Julia Stiles is alright, in a boyish clotheshorse sort of way, but I'd be a bit worried she'd try to break the ice by making you watch one of her movies and comment on it. I'd be worried about Julie Meadows doing the same thing, in that case because she'd kill a lot of the mystery and also make me wonder about, er, measuring up to what she was used to.
  
• Julia Child - Well, you certainly wouldn't kick her out of bed before breakfast. And if she's not afraid to go fist-deep into a monkfish, imagine what else she won't be squeamish about. No worries about acquired tastes, keeps her ingredients fresh, and a devotion to the sensual pleasures in life... I think you could do a lot worse.
  
• Julius Caesar - He kept himself fit, and he wrote poetry, so you know its an option. I wonder if he'd have the patience and consideration to make it be worthwhile, or if it would be a disappointment as he stumbled off after five minutes muttering "Alia iactum est." Plus you know every time you saw him too he'd nudge his friends, nod in your direction and say, "Vidi, vinci, veni."
• Jewel - Both versions of Jewel are a little annoying. There's the folksy, birkenstocks Jewel with stories about growing up in an iglooo, and the vamped up, I'm satirizing vapid pop culture by desperately trying to make myself into a vapid sex kitten after I turned 30 Jewel, who really just makes me sad. So that's a pass.
  
• Julia Drusilla - Caligula's favorite sister and some say favorite lover certainly had to know a few tricks. I may be basing a lot of my opinion on the fact that she was portrayed in the 1979 movie by the absolutely delicious Teresa Ann Savoy.
• Juliet Capulet - How high maintenance would this chick be? First there's the palace in Verona where she grew up that you'd have to measure up to, and then there's her brawling relatives threatening to stab you. You just know she'd carry on about how her last boyfriend committed suicide for her anytime she wanted anything, too... eventually you'd have to snap and tell her "Yeah, and I wouldn't check for a pulse either, you whiny bitch."
  
• Juliette Lewis - I haven't seen a movie of hers in like 10 years besides her brief appearances in Vaughn/Wilson comedies, so maybe I should watch Blueberry and reevaluate. I'd probably blow it by asking if she thought the Meet the Press with Juliette Lewis sketch on Studio 60 was as funny as I did.
  
• Julia Louis-Dreyfus - That weird crown of hair she had in the early seasons of Seinfeld was so goofy I'd still picture it every time I looked at her. Only Katherine Hepburn has ever pulled it off as anything other than stereotypical overbearing 19th century governess, and I really wish everybody else would quit trying. It's like vertical bangs, no good.
• Jewel Staite - She's a scrumptious actress turned geek icon for playing a horny mechanic on Firefly. If she looks that good with grease smudges on her cheeks, she'd almost have to look dynamite with pillow head. Then again, she is Canadian.
  
• Orange Julius - A fencing team-mate once described the experience of an eskimo blow to me in less than glowing terms. I'd have to imagine that's what a love affair with an Orange Julius would have to approximate, only with a straw potentially poking up your... never mind. It tastes bright and happy at least.

So really, you just can't beat Julia Child. Too bad she's dead.

Packers 9 - 7 Vikings

I caught the last two minutes of this game at the hospital and then elected not to watch my tivo recording of it. It's fairly hard to believe that Brett Favre's only touchdown pass was to Fred Smoot, who ran it 47 yards back for the Vikings, and the Packers still won. The Vikings offense managed 3 first downs, 104 yards of total offense, and zero points. So basically the defense lost 9-7. The Vikings are now officially out of the playoffs. This was supposed to be our year, since for once we didn't have that game against the Giants that kills the team's momentum every year. At least Childress may be fired, and the Tardis will start next year.

Below, a few of the people whose behavior caught my attention recently. Even if in some cases their odd behavior was days, weeks, years, or decades ago.

Tank Johnson

Bears defensive tackle Tank Johnson sat out Sunday's game against the Buccaneers because he was picked up for having assault rifles in his home. His bodyguard was also arrested, but then murdered a few days later. This is still not as weird as when then Bears DT Alonzo Spellman's doctor was late to an appointment, prompting Spellman to barricade himself in his home and hold off the police with a gun. The Bears gave up 28 second half points to the Buccaneers forcing overtime.

Christina Lindberg

I've just been watching the infamous Thriller - En Grym Film, better known as They Call Her One Eye, a tale of rape, drugs, and revenge that was banned in its native Sweden, and was one of the inspirations for Kill Bill. I've seen Christina Lindberg in this and Sex and Fury, and I'm wondering if this woman did any movies where she's not raped on-screen. It's a hell of a pair of films, full of hardcore sex and nudity, graphic violence, and occasionally hardcore naked violence.

The Hypno-Toad

I had no idea that another season of Futurama was in production, how did this escape my attention? The best part is the inclusion on the DVD of a full episode of the Hypno-toad's show. I have no idea why I find the Hypno-toad so fascinating, I just do. Futurama was so tragically underrated, but the one blessing was it never got drunk on its success and went downhill (unlike The Simpsons or Family Guy). All glory to the Hypno-toad.

Johann Sebastian Bach and Lara St. John

How is it I didn't know Bach brought out this sort of windswept, overheated, sweaty passion in women? Stroking her violin until she swoons, dress slipping off as her eyes roll back in her head. Actually I suppose that woman I used to see who played the cello probably should have clued me in a bit. But this looks less like a Baroque concerto CD and more like the cover of an Andrew Blake movie, and the name Lara St. John sounds like such a soft porn stage name. But hey, if it sells classical music.

The FCC

..-. -.-. -.-. -.. .-. --- .--. ... -- --- .-. ... . -.-. --- -.. . .-. . --.- ..- .. .-. . -- . -. - ..-. --- .-. .... .- -- .-. .- -.. .. --- --..-- .... .- ...- . - .... . -.-- ..-. .. -. .- .-.. .-.. -.-- -. --- - .. -.-. . -.. - .... . ..... ----- ... .- .-. . --- ...- . .-. ..--..

Rotten Christmas gifts I plan on getting my friends this year

1. A $10 gift card to the Chicago Chop House. For $10 you can eat some peanuts at the piano bar and watch the paramedics work on the heart-attack victims.

2. A collection of yard signs from Michele Bachman's congressional campaign that I plan on putting in Phil's yard. (Relax, I'm just kidding.)

3. A road-tour package of the United States, featuring the New England fall colors, a gastronomical tour of Louisiana, the Grand Canyon, and the Pacific Coast, with transportation exclusively provided by Megabus.

4. A hummingbird feeder which will attract even more hornets to the Candyman's balcony while he's buzzing around it sipping nectar.

5. The Sweet Sixteen DVD collection, featuring 16 Candles, 16 Blocks, and North Pole #16.

J-E-T-S 26, Vikings 13

You can always tell when an NFL team's season ends, because suddenly your shitty-ass team
actually starts getting the fans excited and doing something. It's a function of having nothing to play for, way down with the clock running out in a must-win game, because that's when the third string QB and other young talent come off the bench and start going for stupid stuff, like throwing bombs down field and going for two-point conversions, 4th down conversions, and recovering onside kicks, because hey, who gives a fuck. And the other team is giving them a lot of slack because they've got the game in the bag, and they really didn't game-plan for the 3rd string QB running naked bootlegs to throw to a practice squad receiver in a four wide-out set. So that's what kind of game it ended up being.

Things looked more hopeful early, and the Vikings were still technically looking for a shot at a play-off game in Seattle, where they won 31-13 earlier this year, and then potentially another goofy match-up with the Bears, where anything can happen. And they had to stay ahead of the Packers to prevent the storming of the Winter Park by the Bolshevikes, presumably led by former Viking Stalin Colinet, just to flesh out my weak attempt at Russian history jokes. I miss my friends who got history jokes (and made better ones).

The first Jets drive promised a good day for the Vikings. On their second offensive play of the game, Vikings defensive end Kenechi Udeze smacked down his opposing number on the Jets line like an inflatable clown and then trampled him as he launched himself onto Chad Pennington, who had barely time to take a step back from the snap. Pennington fumbled, and Napoleon "don't call me dynamite" Harris recovered it for the Vikings. The resulting Vikings touchdown was something I've been waiting for all year, Travis Taylor beat his man and came wide open across the middle, and Johnson hit him in stride allowing Taylor a clear path into the end zone.

Alas, the rest of the game didn't exactly go so well. There was one nasty tackle by Pat Williams where he penetrated deep into the backfield, and spotting Cedric Houston rushing past him, Williams threw an arm out and pulled him back into a bear hug, ripping Houston completely off his feet. Seriously, I thought for a minute he must have done the Scorpion "Get over here!" move from Mortal Kombat. But for the most part, the Jets moved the ball pretty well, six scoring drives in all. It didn't help that our offense was shockingly anemic and gave the Jets twice as much time of possession through three quarters. At one point, the 1st downs were something like 21 for the Jets and 2 for the Vikings.

In the 4th quarter, when nobody cared anymore, the Tardis came in, to much rejoicing by Vikings fans. In one quarter, Jackson threw for nearly twice as many yards as Brad Johnson did in the first three, and his scrambling throw for a touchdown to Mewelde Moore was the shining example of the much higher degree of mobility and confidence in his arm shown by the Tardis today. Sure, a TD, a failed 2-point conversion and a pick in garbage time isn't anything to get overly excited about, but we were fairly desperate for something to get excited about. Up until that point the highlight of the game was when four guys dressed as Vikings coach Brad Childress with headsets and fake mustaches, all filed out early, while the crowd took out their frustration with the real Childress on those guys.

At halftime, Randall McDaniel was inducted into the Vikings Ring of Honor, and I wish he could have gotten a better game. McDaniel played in 12 Pro Bowls, was on the NFL's all-decade team
for the 90's, and will probably make it to the Hall of Fame, which has proved strangely difficult for Vikings. I'll always remember him for the goal-line plays where he'd come in as a fullback, because either a blitzer nailed the runningback in the backfield, or it was a TD, because if the line opened up a running lane McDaniel running through it would flatten any linebacker or safety trying to plug the hole. A phenomenal athlete, and from what I hear, a good schoolteacher as well.

Attention Numismatics Fans

Due to the increase in price of certain base metals relative to the US dollar, specifically zinc, nickel, and copper, it's now profitable to melt down US coins. For instance, the penny now increases in value by 74% if you scrape Lincoln's scruffy mug off of it. Consequently, Congress is expected to require a substantial redesign of our coins in 2007 by the US Mint. I wonder, will we get something like those little euro pennies that certain countries only minted in nominal amounts (Finland, the Netherlands) and a nickel that isn't irritatingly huge in light of the number I need to carry in my pocket if I want to use them on the bus? And then get glared at by all the other passengers as the driver sits at the curb waiting for me to feed 20 honking coins into the tiny slot.

Unfortunately, the Mint are the people who've released two dollar coins which continue to fail to circulate, and locked up ONE MILLION DOLLARS worth of Susan B. Anthony coins for fifteen years just to piss off any surviving suffragettes (and possibly because it was a stupidly designed coin). The Sacagawea dollar incurred all the transition costs of updating machines to handle the coin and funding those metrosexual George Washington ads where he's out clubbing and too hung over to pay your cab fare in the morning, or something, and of course no savings since the treasury continued to print $1 bills anyways. And yet the only place it's encountered is when you buy a subway ticket with a $20 and miss your train waiting for all 18 gold coins to clink down the change slot one by one, because nobody but public transportation and the post office are secure enough in their monopoly to give it out as change.

The really nefarious element of all of this was a bill quietly passed by Congress last year that I like to think of as the "How can we put W on money?" act, even though that's a paranoid misrepresentation of its contents. In addition to Sacagawea, who will appear on a third of all gold dollar coins, a series will be minted of every US president. To be on it a president has to have been dead at least two years when his turn comes up, making the Clinton dollar less likely, although they are counting Grover Cleveland twice, no doubt to extend the amount of time before W's coin comes up. Seriously, can you imagine how angry the foreign visitors who already complain about homogeneous US money would be if he was on it? Many previously unrecognized contributions to the Republic will be honored this way, such as shipping military weapons to the Confederacy in 1860 (Buchanan), standing around in the cold without a coat on (Harrison), and possibly being involved in your boss's assassination (Arthur).

The presidential $1 coins will only be issued 4 presidents a year until they run out of presidents, at which point they'll either make Sacagaweas or scrap the whole thing. The second option seems more likely, since every time they issue a new coin to replace the $1 bill, they keep printing the bills so nobody actually makes the transition. What's needed is some sort of expert on numismatics and finance, a person who has in his or her mind fused those two topics so completely he or she is able to for instance seamlessly tie together modern finance with ancient Roman coins. Alas, if only such a person existed.

Chelsea 1 - 1 Arsenal

---
'78 Flamini
'84 Essien

I'm really surprised this game didn't end in a win for somebody. Chelsea had a lot of good shots go wide, and Drogba couldn't get anything on target to save his life. Arsenal's shots were few, and generally didn't have enough on them to challenge Hilario, but the goals were certainly nice. Alexander Hleb came down the right side before passing to Mathieu Flamini at the top of the box, and when Flamini passed it back to him, Hleb charged forward taking most of Chelsea's defenders with him before passing back to Flamini for the open shot for Arsenal's goal. Chelsea's goal was a wide-open shot by a trailing Michael Essien, fired from long distance with a lot of power just inside the far post, completely indefensible by any keeper in the world. Hleb got himself a wide-open shot not long after that should have been the winner, except he punted it over the crossbar. Arsene Wenger was so visibly angry at this he punched the ground and fell back into the dugout.

Sadly the most memorable part of the game was the idiocy. One of the numerous times Drogba was sent flying into the air because somebody brushed his shorts, he got up waving hysterically for a penalty, and after the ball was cleared, Jens Lehmann's trick brain kicked in again and he ran over to give Drogba a light nudge upfield, patting him in the small of his back. Drogba of course was sent flying forward like he'd been struck by a moving car, and went back to check Lehmann, who also went down like he'd been tasered. Yellow cards were issued to both, frankly I would have been just as happy to see both go. This isn't the stupidest thing Lehmann's done, his red card for his desperate grab at Samuel Eto'o's ankle in the Champions Leauge final last year, but my god, of all the players in the world to raise a hand to, he goes after Drogba, one of the most notorious divers outside of Portugal. Earlier in the game Drogba was lifted off his feet and thrown backwards when Cesc Fabregas unwittingly stepped on his toe after winning a ball from him, which is why I'd always be happy to see Drogba tossed, talented as he is.

Chelsea's notoriously batty manager Jose Mourinho is fuming over the result. He feels that Arsenal played for a draw, but not to try and get a point in a tough game to help contend for a spot in Europe next year. According to Mourinho, Arsenal's best move would have been to attack recklessly since their only chance for a title is to get maximum points, and the fact that Arsenal scored first obviously in no way suggests that they went for a win and came up short. His claim is Arsenal played for a draw because that was the surest way to help Manchester United, by taking points off of Chelsea. This would be funny, if not for Mourinho's paranoid fabrication about referee Anders Frisk fixing matches against Chelsea, which forced Frisk's retirement when rabid Chelsea fans started threatening his life. Since then, Mourinho's paranoia is a lot less amusing.

Annoying Soccer Update

1. FIFA Club World Cup

The Club World Cup has kicked off in Japan, without a whole lot of fanfare. The last time this event was played was six years ago in Brazil when it was won by Corinthians, a team chosen more or less at random by the Brazilian FA to make up the numbers. The format has changed, and it's all in Japan so it can be merged a little more smoothly with the Toyota Cup, the traditional game between the European and South American champions. This time, the champions of the other four continents played off while Europe and South America got a bye to the semi-finals.

African champions Al Ahly (Egypt) beat Auckland City FC by the score of 2-0 in Toyota City yesterday, in what has to be the most ridiculous game. No disrespect to Auckland City, and it would be nice if they got a bump from this since they're working to promote a minor sport in New Zealand in a struggling league, but since Australia joined Asia, Auckland City are by default the champions of Oceania. They play in the Australian A-league, so I don't they ever played another Oceania club to become the continent's champions. Any future CWC will have to include them by default, making another argument for making Oceania an Asian subgroup at best (which in practical terms they will be in World Cup qualifying). Al Ahly goes on to play the South American champions Internacional (Brazil) in the semi-finals this Wednesday.

Club America saw off Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors FC 1-0 in what was by all accounts a very lacklustre game. Supposedly America were dealing with jet lag and still mourning losing the Mexican championship to Chivas, so maybe they'll come up with something against Barcelona in the semi-finals on Thursday.

Auckland City FC and Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors FC will play off to determine which continent is worst on Friday. I'd like to think that the only team I've never heard of, Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, is the stronger team for having won the Asian Champions League, which usually always seems to go to a Japanese or Saudi club.

The 3rd place game and the Final will both be played on Sunday in Yokohama.

2. Freddy Adu to Real Salt Lake

Maybe now he'll get some playing time and quit whining. DC United was only using him as a super-sub, since he was a small teenager and they didn't want to burn him out and get him injured playing him 90 minutes a game against grown men. Adu might see some more time with the national team as well after the Copa America, so we can see if he's going to play in South Africa in 2010. Supposedly he's in talks with Manchester United, who can't buy him until next summer, at which point he'll be stashed on a reserve team somewhere but we'll find out how good he really is.

3. World Cup Qualifying

The allocations for each continent for South Africa 2010 are out, and it's a little strange. One thing that went right is now that Australia is part of Asia, making Oceania qualifying fairly pointless, the OFC winner will join the last round of Asian qualifying. This is good. what's odd is
that the combined confederations will get five spots. I would have thought at most 4.5 with a play-off against Europe.

The Americas will get eight spots in total, which is about the same as usual, but I have no idea what kind of play-off structure will apply. My guess would be 3 North/Central American teams will qualify directly from the Hex, and 4 South American teams will qualify directly from the same single group qualifying structure, with one team from each playing off for the last spot. The cream does tend to rise to the top in the Americas, but the play-off just got a lot tougher. I'd actually like to see two play-offs, making the Hex a lot tighter if 3rd place meant a playoff in the mountains of Ecuador.

It's hard to say who's going to play well out of Africa in a given year, but the qualifying process leaves very little confidence that Africa has sorted out its best teams, unlike the current systems in the American confederations. This year, the host allocation will not come out of the confederation's allocation, so Africa will have six teams in total including South Africa. Given that, I'd like to see rigorous qualifying that sends six quality African sides to Africa's World Cup.

To make this bounty possible for Africa and Asia, Europe has lost a spot. I wish this meant one less overly defensive, slow, boring team, and we'd be spared another Switzerland vs Ukraine game. Unfortunately it will probably be somebody loaded with talent like Portugal, France, or the Netherlands who has a rough qualifying draw and gets left behind.

Vikings 30 - 20 Lions

I love how NFC North games are always a bizarre affair. The Vikings ate the Lions alive in the first quarter running up an early 20-0 lead, then held the Lions to -3 yards rushing over the course of the game, and forced 6 turnovers. Yet somehow the game ended up close in the 4th quarter, and a Vikings victory was only sealed by some lunacy on the part of the Lions. With only a few minutes remaining, down ten points, the Lions needed two scores. Facing first and goal on the one, they tried running the ball into the end zone. At this point in the game, the Vikings #1 rushing defense had given up approximately ZERO net rushing yards, so it was an interesting choice to run the ball three times, and lost the Lions a yard. On 4th down, rather than kicking a field goal and looking for a touchdown in the remaining four minutes, the Lions went for it, and lost more yards when Jon Kitna was sacked. They still had a very slim shot if they got a quick stop, scored quickly and then recovered an onside kick, until Kitna threw his third interception on their final possession.

The Vikings showed some rare fire and creativity today. In the absence of Chester Taylor, Artose Pinner ran for 125 yards and three touchdowns. On their first drive, the Vikings nearly stalled again in the red zone, but instead of kicking a field goal from the 20 yard line, they went for a 1st down, a risky move which lead to a touchdown. At one point on 3rd and 13 Johnson faked the hand-off on a reverse and threw a screen pass to Mewelde Moore, who got the first down on one of the few successful misdirection plays the team has pulled off this year. When Bethel Johnson handed off a kick-off to Charles Gordon to sow confusion on a kickoff return in the final two minutes of the first half, that was a brilliant play, and barring the imbecilic ruling of the officials after Gordon dropped the ball and recovered it himself, it would have been huge.

A strange, strange game, which keeps the Vikings alive in the play-off race, but more importantly was a lot of fun to watch.

Timberwolves 91 - 81 Bulls

The Wolves played well tonight in a fun, fast paced game with a lot of ball movement by both sides. The Wolves started the 3rd quarter by holding the Bulls to 2 points and opening up a 20 point lead. With five minutes left in the quarter, it was critical point that the Bulls make up some ground to go into the 4th quarter looking at an achievable task. For the Wolves, it was critical to break the spirit of the Bulls and prevent a late rally. So of course the next five minutes were spent feeding the ball into the post and watching it bounce off of a confused Eddie Griffin's hands, as Luol Deng took over the game for the Bulls and started their comeback, taking the lead down to ten points, and closer in the 4th quarter. The Wolves did take back control in the 4th enough to keep the Bulls from making up any more ground.

They played a decent game against a .500 team, but it seems like both organizations need something to happen. The Wolves have a lot of mediocre players who don't consistently distinguish themselves even as role players. They also have no upside, as everybody's just getting older not better, they're too good to get a decent lottery pick (and draft poorly anyways), and have like $300m tied up in guaranteed contracts over the next few years. Unless one of the two big proposed trades goes through, the Wolves will lose the fans and be back to what they were for the first few years of their existence: the Washington Generals of the NBA, a team that provides a forum for basketball fans who want to see other NBA teams.

The Chicago sports media has been convinced since around 1995 that Kevin Garnett is a Chicagoan who desperately wants to return home to the embrace of a major media market. His repeated statements that he's from South Carolina and only lived one year in Chicago never seem to daunt the true believers, though, and for a decade they've reported first that he was going to sign as a free agent to replace Jordan, then that he would demand a trade and the Wolves would have to take whatever Chicago dangled for him. (When he bought a house in Malibu and not Villa Park, this did nothing to quell rumors of his heart being in Chicago.) The proposed trade is whoever the Bulls don't particularly need, they'll ship to Minnesota, and then with Garnett supplementing their existing talent they'll be a force in the Eastern Conference. The advantage to the Wolves would be some money in expiring contracts, and breaking the log-jam of having Garnett's salary tying up all their cap money. The only reason to do it is the Bulls can package New York's draft pick in the deal, which could give the Wolves a new franchise player. A lot of Wolves fans are rooting for this because we want to see a spectacular talent like Kevin Garnett play on a good team again in his career, and he can't do it here.

The other trade goes in the opposite direction, putting together a trade for Allen Iverson, who has been benched by the Philadelphia 76ers for basically just being Iverson and not showing up to practice. A combination of Garnett and Iverson could make the Timberwolves a serious playoff team again. It would certainly be nice to see KG with an actual second scorer again. It's now obvious Iverson is going somewhere as soon as possible since the 76ers won't play him, but Denver has a competing offer. This would be risky, but certainly interesting, and Iverson has been a treat to watch when I've seen him in Minnesota.

So in my opinion, either one of these trades has to go through, or the prospect of five more years of mediocrity will drive off the remaining fans, and Kevin Garnett will opt out of his contract in 2009 and sign with the Lakers or Clippers. Probably not the Bulls though, sorry.

Cars and Boots

I watched Cars and Kinky Boots back to back, and I was a little surprised how they seem to have exchanged the flaws I would have expected from each film.

I wasn't expecting much from Cars given its lukewarm reception, but I thought it would be fun, if not creative or memorable. Instead it just went on interminably, with a fairly uninspired set of stock characters. Other than maybe the Cinque Cento voiced by Tony Shalhoub who's obsessed with Ferrari and Italian auto racing, none of them stood out. It's really the length and the slow pace, all while stuck on the same dusty street.

Kinky Boots was a lot more enjoyable, but really only because Chiwetel Ejiofor steals the show as Lola. Kinky Boots is the story of a man who inherits his family's ailing shoe factory in the north of England, and tries to save it by turning to a nice market: making shoes for transvestite men. The inspiration is Lola, a boxer turned drag queen whose heels keep snapping off under his weight. Chiwetel Ejiofor is fantastic as Lola, with a fearless vivaciousness that fools everyone into missing his deep vulnerability. A great character, in sexy red thigh boots. Seriously, I don't care who's wearing them, I can't get enough thigh high boots.

My only complaint about Kinky Boots is its use of a very overused female character, the antagonist, materialistic girlfriend who just doesn't understand what our hero is trying to accomplish. Abbie Bartlett on The West Wing played off of this archetype, by giving it a lot more depth and exposing her husband's tendency to try to cast her in that role unfairly. As an obstacle in a romantic subplot, it's just too overused. Frankly both movies had uninspiring romantic plots that gave us no reason to believe in them.

But despite all that, Kinky Boots is still a good movie, but Cars is just boring.

No Stuka for you

Six months into the search for a new national team coach, the only progress we've made is that Jurgen Klinsmann has officially withdrawn his name from consideration. Kalifornia Klinsy was our great weiss hope after he coached Germany to third place in the World Cup, since we could offer him a job that would allow him to keep his family based in California. The other big name alternative, Argentina's Jose Pekerman, also looks like a long shot, since nothing has materialized and he also doesn't speak English.

The interim coach is Bob Bradley, who coached the Fire to a double in their first season back in '98. He has also been made the under-23 team coach, which seems a little more his forte. We still need somebody who can instill some sort of tactical sense, and hopefully somebody with some media credibility for the four year project of building a team to take to South Africa, and the Copa America in Venezuela next year. We can't blow it in the Copa America next year, we just can't. Not with Hugo Chavez as our host.

In other news, Gibraltar has been admitted as a UEFA member. Spain had threatened to withdraw, taking all their clubs out of European competition if Gibraltar were allowed in, so this should be fun. The chances of a Gibraltar club being drawn against a Spanish club are incredibly slim, since the Spanish clubs get a bye to later rounds, but the hissyfit expected from the Spanish government would have been some quality entertainment.

Porto 0-0 Arsenal

In a truly uninspired game, Arsenal stumbled their way through to the last 16 in the Champions League. Most of the action took place in Arsenal's half, but the best Porto could come up with were a couple of alarmingly close shots Ricardo Quaresma banged off the post. Both teams went in knowing they only needed a draw to advance, but it really looked like Porto was going to come up with a winner. In the end it didn't matter, because Hamburger picked up their first points in six games against CSKA Moscow in the other game, meaning CSKA couldn't overtake Arsenal or Porto no matter what the result of this game.

Tragically, Anderlecht are going home for the year, along with the other last placed teams from each group. Third place teams continue on in the UEFA Cup, which is kind of the NIT of Europe, and I was suprised to see former European champions Steaua Bucharest in that group, because the Romanian league really dropped off a bit in quality after the Iron Curtain lifted and all their players headed for Spain and Turkey. Players were being paid in firewood not that long ago in Romania, and the national team has dropped a tier in Europe as well since the days of Gheorghe Hagi and that wife-beating striker girls inexplicably continued to go crazy over.

So here are the last 16 in Europe (draw takes place next Friday):
Chelsea
Barcelona
Bayern Munich
Internazionale
Liverpool
PSV Eindhoven
Valencia
Roma
Lyon
Real Madrid
Manchester United
Celtic
Arsenal
FC Porto
Milan
Lille

And can I just say I'm definitely looking forward to next week when Ajax try to get something going in their UEFA Cup run by heading to Belgium to take on Zulte Waregem. The new crop of stars coming up through the youth system and their African development all seem to have moved on (Ibrahimovic, Van der Vaart) or imploded (Mido), and now they're scraping their way to a third place tie with Sparta Prague, trailing Zulte and Espanyol, ahead of only the mighty Austria Wien. I really wish they'd gotten the Atlantic league off the ground with the Belgians, Scots, and Portuguese, and some kind of bigger stage at least on a par with the French league for these guys.

The Doug Mientkiewicz Trade Postmortem

Now, 2+ years after the deal went through, Twins fans finally know what we got for Doug Mientkiewicz. Absolutely nothing but the peace of mind of getting rid of Doug Mientkiewicz.

Back in 2004, the Twins had a 1st baseman playing in Rochester who looked like the best power hitter to come through the organization since Kent Hrbek, while the Twins were starting Mientkiewicz, a gold glove fielder who couldn't hit anything, not a good trade-off at 1st base. They had to get playing time for Justin Morneau at the major league level, so the Twins fielded any and all offers for a 30-year old 1st baseman to use as a late-inning defensive substitution. In a four way deal, Mientkiewicz went to the Red Sox, and the Twins got Justin Jones, a 19-year old class A pitcher who just had his pitching arm come detached from its socket and go flying over the plate, or some other less zany but still career threatening injury. Mientkiewicz was really popular in Minnesota, and fielded the last out of the World Series when the Red Sox won that year. Things seemed pretty good for him, and a lot of Twins fans wondered why a team contending for division titles was trading away starters for dim prospects.

Then he started acting really nuts, and got into a feud with the Red Sox over the World Series game ball, which he had just kept in his glove following the last out. Eventually, honest to god, they refused to pay him $50,000 for it, but asked to "borrow" it, and then never gave it back. Mientkiewicz also claimed credit for the Red Sox victory, because of his critical contributions as a sub on 8th and 9th inning ground-outs. Since then he's been shown the door by the Mets and was antsy to get out of KC after an atrocious year. It seemed good to see the back side of him, and just remember him in his exuberant, rally-cap, not quite so insanely self-aggrandizingly insane days with the Twins. And Morneau did win the MVP. The real upside to the trade was supposed to be the gamble that Justin Jones could become a lights-out major league pitcher. He had the talent to do it, if his arm recovered, which was unlikely enough to make him equal in value to Doug Mientkiewicz. Now, two and a half years later, he's been picked up by the Washington Nationals in the Rule V draft.

In brief, the Rule V draft is a mechanism by which every winter, major league teams can take underutilized players from each other's minor league organizations to keep anyone from anti-competitively stockpiling talent that should be on display in the majors. Anybody who takes a player this way has to keep them on their major league roster for the year, so it's only worthwhile if the player can contribute at a higher level for a different organization. Jones obviously developed into a major league pitcher, but it didn't do us any good, so the Twins traded Mientkiewicz for nothing. (There is a possibility under Rule V that the Nationals would return Jones to the Twins if they can't keep a roster spot for him.) I really would have enjoyed seeing Jones pitch once for the Twins as the conclusion to the Mientkiewicz saga, but alas, it was not meant to be.

I guess they can't all be like the time we robbed the Los Angeles Giants of San Francisco so badly in the A.J. Pierzynski trade. But that's another story.

Timberwolves 90 - 84 Big Chinese Dude

It's sometimes publicly bemoaned that Yao Ming never seems to get the superstar credit he deserves, but after tonight I find myself wondering how unfair that really is. Neither Yao nor Tracy McGrady had a great night for the Rockets and both were basically invisible, and really only offensive rebounding (15 total to the Wolves 5) and ridiculously good three point shooting (11-23) kept them in this game. To be fair, both were part of that rebounding advantage, but 25% shooting from the guys who take half your team's shots is pretty sketchy.

The amazing thing is the Yao wasn't that much of a presence in the paint, despite towering over other freakishly tall players like a monster from a children's cartoon and having a remarkably graceful game. I still think of the Rockets as Hakeem Olajuwon's team, 11 years after their last title, because when he played your eyes naturally gravitated towards him, and he had such an indefensible offensive arsenal that opponents just watched and hoped he'd miss. When Kevin Garnett was playing at an MVP level, he was an obvious center of attention like that, because opposing forwards would just slump their shoulders and watch his fade-away.

Tonight, the final turning point was when Garnett blocked a shot by the Yao, forced him to clumsily trap his next attempt against the glass and then tore the ball away. When The Big Ticket on his way down the floor paused to skip and pump his fist towards the stands, the whole crowd got to its feet to get behind the Wolves as they finished off the Rockets, and everybody knew that was all that was going to happen in the final minutes.

2006 Oscar Shorts, or The Chill Breath of the Reaper

I've caught almost all of last year's Oscar nominated short films, and there's this recurring theme through three animated films and five live action films where they're all about death. Okay, one of the cartoons was about a hibernating badger, and one of the live action films was about working the late shift at the supermarket, but my god did that feel like death. There's certainly some quality stuff, and a couple deserving award winners, but yikes, it's like Hollywood thinks America's going down in flames and like the Greeks in the last hours of their civilization, our artwork is going to be non-stop death until the very end.

The 2003 Oscar shorts were also released in a collection, and it's a pretty stark contrast in tone. That collection had some lighter fare like "Mike's New Car", the Pixar short with the characters from Monsters, Inc.; "The Chubbchubbs!", a hilarious film about a janitor at a cantina packed with science fiction movie characters and carnivorous fuzzballs; and "Das Rad", a German film about rocks watching the temporary distraction of the rise and fall of civilization around them. The live action films included quite a bit of humor as well, like the Belgian film "Fait d'hiver", which is an urban legend about a man calling his house and having his five year old daughter (who was curiously reminiscent of Bryan's niece) tell him Mommy's playing in the bedroom with "Uncle Wim". The best film in that collection was "This Charming Man", a comedy about a Danish man whose unemployment paperwork gets screwed up, so he has to pose as a muslim asylum-seeker to get a job and takes Danish classes to hit on the instructor, and sees how differently Danish society is views Lars Hansen than they do his alter ego El Hassan. Either the Iraq war or rampant movie piracy must have the Academy a little depressed.

Some things are worth commenting on, like "The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello", which in title and in a brief description sounds like a much lighter film than it really is. It tells the story of Jasper Morello, living in a very vertical and airborne industrialized society, navigating an airship into the unknown reaches of the sky with an old biologist on a mission to seek new medicines in the wild places of the world. However, Morello's mission is seeking a cure for a wasting, coughing disease afflicting his whole society, which he and the doctor find in a carnivorous jungle plant, which is kept alive for the journey home by feeding it the entire crew and all of Morello's blood. All the characters appear as black silhouettes against the white walls and grey clouds around the airship, turning a fantastic craft and landscape and a noble adventure into this blighted, diseased, black tale. The use of silhouettes, only shifting to detail to show the diseased, and the hungry, carnivorous plant, things that are impure and not whole, is visually interesting, as is the world of open-decked airships Jasper Morello comes from.

The Oscar went to "The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation", which is an imagined attempt by a son to speak to his recently deceased father about his father's life and criminal past, and the bitter, violent anger that poisoned that life. I felt it was a well made film, and I found its style of animation reminiscent of children's drawings, all in bright primary colors, to tell the story of a son who still feels small facing the memory of his father, even after his death.

The live-action films include some wonderfully filmed stories like "The Last Farm" and "The Runaway" which are perhaps better left unspoiled, ironically about the end of one life, as an Icelandic farmer concludes his last day on the farm, and the beginning of another when a man is forced to spend his first day as a father by a small child who shows up at his door insisting to be his son who needs a ride to school. But still, the impact of our fragile mortality lingers over these films like a dying gaul bleeding to death in the seat next to you at the theatre.

I've always liked Kevin Pollack, so the first short I actually watched was "Our Time Is Up", which introduces the recurring theme of death the most directly. Pollack plays a disinterested, ineffective therapist who is diagnosed with terminal disease, who starts brusquely just speaking his mind with his stable of hopeless clients. His unprofessional outbursts and enjoying tweaking their phobias actually challenges them for the first time in their therapy. Being able to ignore the risk that his clients will quit therapy actually allows him to do something to help them. "Our Time Is Up" is an amusing comment on the way death is sometimes the only thing that can force us to live our lives.

The Oscar went to the Irish film "Six Shooter", which is about the weirdest, darkest, most violent, and unmistakably funniest of the whole lot. This was an absolutely bizarre yet absolutely captivating film about a man who has just lost his wife and a couple who've lost a baby to crib death, who end up in a train car with a young man who seems to have no sense of propriety. It's the best movie about suicidal and lapicidal train passengers being entertained by stories about an exploding cow with a climactic police shoot-out I've ever seen, that's for sure. Just a great, bizarre film, well deserving of an Oscar, that touches on death, religion, pain, companionship, courtesy, and police procedure. Seriously, my reaction was what the fuck, and wow.

Besides that I have to add a kind word for "Cashback", a film about working all night in a supermarket, and how to pass the time. It really goes through the expected bits about surrounding oneself with the dregs of the working world for mind-numbing tasks under a fluorescent glare, and the dreary horror of it all. Every worker has their own technique for managing the gray ocean of time. What made it interesting was the narrator's artistic bent and interest in still life leading him to embrace the timelessness void of the supermarket, fascinated by a near-infinite beauty he finds in passing moments. His main obsession is the striking beauty of the female form, that every woman unconsciously shines with in every gesture, and his inner life consists of converting tired, bored female shoppers doing the least sexy thing in the world into beautiful nude sketches. It's all about fascination, when something sublime appears out of the mundane, like plunging through a crack in a frozen lake but falling into warm blue water. This film struck a real familiar chord on the lute strings that I'm told are the strange, strange inner workings of my mind.

And while finishing this up, I did finally catch Pixar's contribution "One Man Band", and it is a cute little film at the end, and it charmed me once the scowling girl picked up the violin and played it herself. Now I can't decide whether to actually watch Cars or just return the DVD now that I've seen the short.

Calcio, Cancer, Castration, and Kazakhstan

After a quick binge on rentals, I discovered there were some things I was missing out on, and some I really, really wasn't.

Borat I obviously caught in the theater, and it really is funny. Borat pushes all the boundaries of good taste, but where it really rises above crude fun is when it pulls in the public and even its own audience. When this film exposes something in people, ranging from at its mildest gullibility to at its worst the racism and sexism and the condescending, ignorant xenophobia that Borat can bring out so easily, that's when it's truly memorable. The real joke is that people are willing to believe that Borat plans to kidnap Pamela Anderson in a homemade bag to drag her back to Kazakhstan, and so easily coaxed into defending slavery, or to warning him as a friendly aside to shave his mustache and not look so much like an Arab, in short that they actually believe in Borat's Kazakhstan, is hilarious. I was also impressed with the consistent tone of the film, where Cohen never winks, and never steps out of Borat's documentary.

Thank You for Smoking was pretty much everything I expected it to be, sharp, quick, and very entertaining. It's fairly light in both story and message, really not taking any of its characters anywhere new as a result of their experiences, so really it's just enjoyable to see a nice set of actors have fun dancing through an amusing script. One surprising consequence is that any meaningful comment is more subtle than I would have expected. For instance, the ironic smugness exhibited by Aaron Eckhart when he is given a nicotine overdose and the only thing that saves his life is being a smoker, I loved the refusal of the film to teach him a lesson. The look at the anti-smoking forces discussing proper auditioning of "cancer boys" mirroring the callousness of the tobacco lobby, and the general impression that everybody seems to have lost any sense of perspective they may have started out with lingers long after watching what is definitely an amusing film.

I wondered what I was missing by not having gotten around to catching Goal! The Dream Begins, which I presumed from the subtitle had further installments on the way. As it turns out, not a whole lot. This is really fluffy, and feels like the film that somebody who read Uplifting Sports Movies for Dummies would make. It's a collection of mild cliches, where our hero has to suffer very predictable defeats and betrayals yet score the big goal in the end, where every turn of the plot is so ordinary it really feels like it came from a checklist. Some things don't make a lot of sense, like how Santiago somehow doesn't need a work permit in England, but really I don't think this film needs too much nit-picking. While it never rises above mediocrity dramatically, I have to admit it pulled me in and gave a warm fuzzy feeling all over every time Santiago caught a break. The football is filmed nicely, and it has the usual cameos by legendary names which are for the most part nicely done, although Beckham's was perhaps appropriately a bit forced. It's watchable, and being so starved for quality soccer since the World Cup, I needed a fix. And Anna Friel may not be creme brulee, but she is like a chocolate-covered fortune cookie.

I also rented two films with creepy, disturbed children who invoke the story of Little Red Riding Hood, but exhibiting rather different levels of filmmaking. I haven't seen anything as clumsy as the horror movie Red Riding Hood in ages, and it was truly forgettable crap that tried to slap together superficial elements of as many horror films as it could find over terrible acting, just yikes. Hard Candy is actually a serious project, and about as far away in quality from the other as you can get. The two actors who are 99% of the film's focus are perfect as a charming photographer with an interest in teenage girls, and the emotional shadows that go over Ellen Page's face during any line are fascinating to watch on their own. The seeds of doubt and of guilt are enough to keep conflict alive and loyalties wavering all the way up to the last frame, as the film 's conflict can creepily enough be easily appreciated from both sides, predatory photographer and castrating child. The whole thing is beautifully shot, staying intimate with its actors faces under harsh light that shows every twitch. I'm actually still unnerved enough to pat my balls thankfully.

So basically, Hard Candy and Thank You For Smoking are both worth digging up and checking out if the latest Drew Barrymore romantic comedy is out of stock, and Goal! The Dream Begins is a nice guilty pleasure.

If I did it...

Fox has decided not to publish and promote O.J.'s purely speculative treatise about how he might have gone about murdering his ex-wife and her boyfriend.  I shared the horror of the public that forced this, because I also believe O.J. is circumventing Henry Hill laws and cashing in on a criminal act.  I wish the book hadn't been yanked though, because my problem with it is O.J. isn't going far enough.  Nothing can really happen to him that already hasn't, so I wish he'd just say he did it.  This book would have gone a long way towards that, and if O.J. admits he did it we could all move on a bit because nobody could ever claim that there was a vast conspiracy to bring him down.  Well, they still could, since being guilty doesn't actually preclude evidence being planted, but even there, a full confession would help establish any misconduct in the investigation and the trial, if the actual facts could be established.  I suppose I really still don't know if the author of such books as I Want to Tell You, (if) I Did It, and others is guilty or not, but I do like how the titles of those books flow together, and how the "if" really is in a different color from the rest of the title on the jacket cover.

The Sign of the Cross (1932)

I only recently became aware of this film and its infamous role in ushering in thirty years of censorship of the American film industry. Cecil B. DeMille's The Sign of the Cross has been credited with being single film most responsible for making mandatory the Hays Code, which banned any film that would lower the moral standard of any person viewing it. I wondered what could possibly have been so damaging to the moral sense of the viewer about this movie that it could have had such a chilling effect, and yet had such broad appeal as to be a profitable studio release. And really, I wondered if the House of 1,000 Corpses of the 1930's could have a similar effect today, and whether I would be morally damaged by the act of watching it. Here is my analysis, which contains several spoilers, to warn anybody into 30's cinema, or you can just skip to the last two paragraphs (I know I wouldn't read this boring rambling).

The odd thing, given its place in history, is that it's such a wholesome story. It features very pure and wholesome Christian heroes who choose righteousness over evil, and celebrates their inevitable triumph over paganism and their heavenly reward, without the slightest bit of irony or cynicism. And despite all that the answer to my question was yes, it was highly morally damaging. The darkest reaches of my psyche, full of lust and rage, were certainly stimulated by watching this deeply immoral film, and God I loved it.

The film is set during the reign of Emperor Nero, in the immediate aftermath of the great fire that destroyed much of Rome. Nero deflects suspicion by blaming the Christians, and ordering them all rounded up. All the Christians are forced underground, while Roman soldiers pursue them relentlessly and torture them for information on their friends and family and fellow worshipers. The Christians are noble, human, and sympathetic heroes, suffering religious oppression of the worst kind. This makes the notorious nature of the film that much more amusing, since it's so wholeheartedly pro-Christian in its themes, strongly playing on the idea that Rome's Christians may be suffering, but their faith is rewarded by the eventual triumph over pagan cruelty modern audiences know is coming.

Meanwhile, the Romans are extraordinarily decadent bed-hopping fools. Half of the immorality of this film comes from the hedonism of the Romans, particularly the Empress Poppaea, sleeping with half of Rome and inviting gossipy neighbors to strip down and enjoy a nice bath with her in a giant, frothy tub of donkey milk. Every time Claudette Colbert's nipples came peeking out of the milk, I'm sure it was another nail in the coffin of freedom of expression in cinema, and her command to Vivian Tobin to “Take off your clothes and get in here,” certainly can't have helped.

The film's main story centers around one particular good Christian woman, Mercia, and the Roman Consul Marcus Superbus. Marcus has shown some rare moral fiber by fending off the advances of Empress Poppaea (no doubt because of her ridiculous bangs), and when he becomes smitten with Mercia, he uses his influence to keep her family from being rounded up, since she's hot. Tension builds between Marcus, trying to save the woman he's loved for five minutes, and Poppaea, who is determined to have Marcus all to herself and figures bumping off his Christian hoochie-mama is a necessary first step.

Marcus attempts to convince Mercia to accept the inevitable slaughter in the Coliseum of her fellow Christians, and to just renounce her faith and hide out with him in his house, where he's throwing a giant party. Marcus tries to convince her to abandon a cruel god who wants all his followers to just calmly parade like lambs to the slaughter. Mercia will not yield to temptation, and so Marcus in frustration allows his fellow pagan party-goers to mock her and seduce her to their hedonistic lifestyle. Eventually Marcus's party is cut short, as the music is drowned out by the hymns the Christians are singing as they are marched through the street past Marcus's house on their way to the Coliseum. Mercia then smugly announces that her place is with the doomed Christians.

The seduction of the hedonistic Romans once again damaged my moral character, although in this case particularly I should stress this is only from the perspective of a Hays Code censor. The most sinful woman in Rome, Ancaria, for the amusement of the rest of Marcus's guests, mocks Mercia by singing The Naked Moon. This mainly consists of dancing erotically, running her hands over Mercia and kissing her neck, singing her song about love, while the hyperstimulated party crowd make out and paw themselves. When the Christian singing comes into earshot, it breaks the erotic spell and Mercia smugly puts on a sad, chaste smile, while Ancaria cowers in fear. Jesus is a sure-fire cure for tempting, hot girl-on-girl action, but after dismissing his frightened party guests, Marcus is only prevented from attempting to rape Mercia in an attempt to make her stay by the arrival of Roman soldiers who take her away. The whole scene is full of sexualized violence, as Mercia is intimidated by Ancaria's dancing and the oversexed Marcus's sense of power, and my moral character was seriously weakened by this film's temptation to secretly enjoy it while frowning outwardly along with Mercia.

What really gives the film its shock value though is the arena, which I suppose on reflection couldn't actually be the Coliseum, what with it not being built yet. The Romans are once again shown as hedonistic, petty people bickering over seats and gorging themselves while the Christians sublimely await their brutal, horrible deaths by reading from scripture and consoling one another. When the games begin, the Romans are treated to the sight of several rounds of bloody combat while different crowd members laugh and cheer, turn away in horror, or simply sigh in boredom and pore over their programs. All the fighting is shown in all its brutal glory, including swordsman, pygmies with spears, and most bizarrely men with spiked gloves repeatedly punching each other and spitting out teeth and blood. DeMille puts his audience in the arena, savoring over the fighting, and he lingers on the dying gladiators suffering the boos of the crowd, bringing us as close as he can to the brutal, now forbidden spectacle.

This would not be all that remarkable, certainly not by modern standards, except for when the Christians begin to enter the arena. Generally the Christians are matched up in losing situations with wild animals, and a few are sacrificed individually, for instance men are staked down and trampled by elephants, who then drag their bodies away. The big finale for the Romans is a mass feeding of Christians to lions, where the Christians all march out placidly, humming Christian hymns, while the lions are driven into the arena by their handlers. The actual scenes of lions attacking Christians, with a broad panorama of several scenes of people being eaten, is actually quite shocking in their realism.

The most striking images are of women wearing nothing but garlands tied around her in a spiral in a very decorative sort of bondage motif. One is staked out on the ground with some supports to keep her prone body a few inches off the ground, while hungry crocodiles his and saunter towards her, and she screams in terror, waiting to be eaten. Another woman, shown here, has her hands bound to the top of a pole, with the same rope of garlands barely covering her breasts and genitalia, while a gorilla menaces her. In the finale, another woman is shown tied up in the same situation while lions eat all the screaming Christians around her. These scenes are highly sexual, and imply the brutal deaths these women are about to suffer. This is just like the combination of sex and death in modern slasher movies, only since it's done by somebody competent, this is actually pretty moving, and starts blood flowing into all the dark recesses of the mind. Seriously, I was all set to find a Christian woman to sacrifice before my phone rang and I lost my train of thought.

The film's primary story concludes here, as Empress Poppaea has ordered that Mercia be held behind to go out last, so Marcus will see her die horribly and achieve closure. Mercia comforts a boy who is afraid to go out, despite the prodding of soldiers, but convinces him to go out singing and be happy because he's going to heaven and she'll be there with him again soon. He walks out singing, and then his voice is abruptly cut off. Marcus arrives to try and dissuade her from going to her death, but instead Mercia converts him to Christianity and they both walk out into the arena, while the doors close behind them and rays of light falling on the doors illuminate a patch in the shape of a cross. The fatalism and willingness to die of the Christians is certainly unnerving,

There are several elements that make this feel so wrong, one is obviously the sexualized violence, both in the barely covered women being terrorized in the arena, but also the near molestation earlier in the Naked Moon dance. This really does entice the audience to enjoy the growing horror, and so do the cheering and laughing spectators. The thing that really makes it feel so visceral is the way DeMille makes sure to linger on the horror and anticipation of the victims, as they wail or whimper but can't look away from the advancing animals, or as they curl up under the claws of the lions. He lingers again over the last grimacing gasp of breath and then concludes each round of slaughter by showing the still, bloody bodies. The familiar reaction of the crowd, where some laugh and clap while some look ill, is a disturbing reminder of ourselves, while watching this on film we are tempted to be horrified and entertained, and showing people a side of themselves they aren't ready to see will always run afoul of censorship. The question that could have been asked by this film is most visible in the third reaction mixed into the crowd: boredom. Some people are too desensitized and impatient to even pay attention, lacking any real empathy or capacity to really grasp what is going on, and those are the truly frightening people, not those who enjoy it but the people who turn their heads in disinterest.

So the eventual conclusion I came to was startling and dismaying. Over the next few years following the release of this film, the events of the plot actually happened. A religious minority was blamed for the leading problems of the day, rounded up and murdered according to the whims of their jailers, and nobody really much cared. When the St Louis tried to dock in Florida, we sent all its passengers back to Europe to be murdered. This film was a chilling warning about human nature and the events to come, and what we all as spectators would probably do, and the forces of censorship in the United States thought it would lower our moral standard? This is really why I zealously oppose censorship, and why I sometimes dig into certain unsavory topics with a seeming lack of propriety. But mostly it's because I'm an idiot. (At least I'm honest.)

Dutch cleaning up after filthy Canadians?

The Dutch are widely regarded as the world's best hydrological engineers for having created windmills to pump out their land, and for the gates protecting Rotterdam and Amsterdam from storm surges, as well as numerous other achievements. So of course when Victoria, British Columbia had a problem controlling the amount of urine flowing through their streets, of course they turned to the Dutch for help.

Nobody likes a stinky urinal or port-a-potty just sitting around on the street, next to some cafe serving lunch, and larger public toilets are notorious havens for gay sex and drugs, so the obvious solutions were really out. Fortunately, the problematic pissers in Canada and Holland are nocturnal, and only fill the streets with urine under cover of darkness when the bars and clubs close up, so the Dutchies came up with a nocturnal solution.

They created a urinal which rises up out of the street via remote control after dark, and retreats back underground when normal people are up and about. I just think this is bizarre enough to comment on, the fact that Victoria and other cities now have remote control pissoirs rising up out of the pavement. To answer one question that seems to come up, of how come there's a urination system that works for men but not for women: women didn't piss in the street before, and any woman who would use an open toilet on the street will long since have worked out how to piss standing up. There are more pictures and video of this thing here on John Chow's blog.

Hup Holland, indeed.

A letter to a friend, regarding the films of Martin Scorsese

Some people apparently haven't ever seen a Martin Scorsese film, and they really should. There are lots of Scorsese film options, but it is important to select the right one, and to actually see something he directed. For instance, his voice acting performance in that fish cartoon with Will Smith was certainly missable. With that in mind, here is your guide to the films of Martin Scorsese, or at least the ones I've actually seen.

I've never gotten around to seeing Mean Streets, Scorsese's first noteworthy film, which began a series of films with similar themes with a familiar cast, this one starring Harvey Keitel and Robert DeNiro. I also haven't seen any of his documentary work, and I can't really comment on that Michael Jackson video he directed (for "Bad", as I recall). I also missed a fair bit of his work in the 80's, like The King of Comedy and The Last Temptation of Christ, but I'm working on it.

I have however seen some of his legendary work in Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, both of which arguably center on Robert DeNiro's unflinching portrait of a sociopath. Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver is pretty explicitly a man with no real grip on the real world around him but a haze of sex and violence, but the image of Jake LaMotta Scorsese presents in Raging Bull is a man with no capacity to understand why he cannot fit into a normal life with the people around him. The violent rage that tears into every facet of his life leaves him with one remarkable ability: he is the only person in the world not afraid to step into a boxing ring with Sugar Ray Robinson, and there's an incredible tragedy to seeing a career that has to end with most of his life left to live but all his friends and family long since driven away. Raging Bull is such a beautiful film as well, which captures the romance of 1940s boxing that was killed by fixed fights, Mike Tyson, and pay-per-view, it's definitely a significant piece of Americana. Both films have some of the most quoted film lines of all time, but my favorite is still the bruised and bloodied LaMotta approaching Sugar Ray after their last fight, grinning with bloody teeth and a black eye, to say "You never got me down, Ray. You never got me down."

I've never seen The Color of Money or Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear all the way through, but I have to like the challenge represented by both films, because of their reference to earlier material, so I'll rave about them anyways. Taking the story of Fast Eddie Felson from The Hustler and telling us what happened when Eddie got older and lost his edge, and tries to vicariously relive his days of glory through a younger protege, is daring in its way, even as an adaptation of Walter Tevis's novel. There's something about film that's unforgiving when we revisit images, like George Lucas found trying to humanize Darth Vader, because otherwise Fast Eddie can stay back in the 50s forever. Cape Fear takes on an icon as well, revisiting Robert Mitchum's performance in the 1962 film, as well as invoking Mitchum's evil preacher from Night of the Hunter. Scorsese and DeNiro recapture Mitchum's eerie mix of charm and violence, but DeNiro's Max Cady is a step beyond. Where Mitchum is sharp and his relentlessness and sociopathy are not obvious to the society around him, DeNiro is quite clearly operating by a completely different set of mental and emotional rules. There's a clear moral order to the 1962 film, where Scorsese's film presents its victims quite differently in a much more morally and sexually flexible world, and the far more insanely scary version of Cady is part of what allows him to do so. Plus it gave birth to that great Simpsons parody where Sideshow Bob stalks the family like Max Cady.

Then there's Goodfellas. This is like a quintessential piece of American movie culture, and the classic Scorsese film in its use of music and slow motion, as well as the usual profanity and violence. (I really don't know what to make of you not having even seen this, P.J., seriously.) This was the defining American gangster movie for a specific era, like the true story behind the Godfather, adapted from Henry Hill's memoirs of his own criminal enterprises. In Casino, Joe Pesci and Robert DeNiro reunited with Scorsese to tell the story of the rise and fall of the mob in Las Vegas in the same style. Seriously I don't know how Goodfellas didn't penetrate that rock in the Swiss Alps you've been hiding under.

Other than Casino, A lot of Scorsese's work after Goodfellas didn't generate the same kind of response, but there's some quality work. The Age of Innocence was horrendously boring and did a lot to kill Winona Ryder's career, since her performance was also truly horrendous, and I never quite got around to seeing Scorsese's take on the exile of the Dalai Lama, Kundun. I did enjoy quite a bit Bringing Out the Dead, a black comedy which stars Nicholas Cage as an ambulance driver whose life is crumbling, desperately searching for a life to save, which serves for him like a sexual experience, directly comparing it himself to falling in love. The scene where his partner Ving Rhames goes through a dramatic faith healing ritual holding hands with the crowd over the body of an overdose victim calling for him to rise up, knowing that Nicholas Cage is quietly administering medical care and seeing how many stupid club kids will let the faith healing take the credit, just killed me.

The big return of Martin Scorsese was supposed to be his epic Gangs of New York, which is an interesting recreation of a particular place and time in history, even if unfortunately the main characters and the primary story are not particularly gripping. Daniel Day-Lewis is tremendous as Bill the Butcher, and Scorsese should be credited with bringing him and Leonardo DiCaprio out of retirement. The Aviator is also ultimately a forgettable film other than its recreation of a certain era and certain personae, and the real highlight is DiCaprio's expertly captured descent into madness as Howard Hughes, and Cate Blanchett's Katherine Hepburn.

However, and here's the thing, The Departed is his best movie in over fifteen years. The fantastic performance Leonardo DiCaprio gives as an undercover police officer unraveling under stress is simply fascinating, and a spectacular cast delivers the most amazing and brutal crime film I've seen in years. It's absolutely captivating, and likely to be a highlight of a lot of careers, and possibly the film that wins Scorsese his first Oscar as a director. I raved about The Depahted (alternate pronunciation) in detail here, and I can't believe you haven't seen it, or any other Scorsese movie. My god man, would you please quit torturing me with this Scorsese boycott and please see this movie?

Bears 23 - 13 Vikings

I really wish I could analyze this sordid affair in detail, but I really can't. It's just too bizarre and painful. 10 turnovers in all, and at one point Brad Johnson threw an interception, the Bears offense came out and lined up, Grossman threw an interception right back, and then Johnson threw another interception as soon as he came back on the field. Johnson over the course of four passes threw three interceptions during that stint... at halftime his QB rating was 16.7, still better than Grossman's 0.0. The difference was, the Vikings did not advance the ball after turnovers, and therefore failed to capitalize on them, especially when the Bears fumbled the opening kick-off, the Vikings started in field goal range, but lost 8 yards on the penalty-ridden drive and had to punt. And I have to agree with Tony Sirigusa about how stupid a punt returner has to be to get near a ball they can't field, because they only risk making it a live ball and causing a turnover. Tony Sirigusa's sideline reporting was a little strange, but I'll cut him some slack since he was in The 25th Hour, which I still think was a great movie.

There was some nice stuff at the end, when Brooks Bollinger came in at QB and drove the team down the field, scoring a touchdown rather than faltering in the red zone as the Vikings have all year. It was late in the game, and the Bears had to be feeling a little comfortable following the safety that put them up by 17 points, but it was still a nice sight. Then the Vikings decided to be daring and went for an unexpected onside kick, which frankly I would have enjoyed even had they lost it. Typically, after recovering the onside kick the Vikings failed to move the ball and the line couldn't protect Bollinger, who predictably got hurt. The Tardis came in on our last possession and lost a fumble while trying to run away from the Bears pass rush, but I'm hoping maybe we see more of the Tardis next week.

This was a game nobody really won, and the Bears should have headed to the locker room with the knowledge that they had just been exposed as being a far more vulnerable team than their 10-2 record would indicate, and that they will be eaten alive in the playoffs when Grossman can't stop throwing to the other team, and they aren't playing the Vikings anymore. The Bears would be better off not going to the Superbowl, because playing like this versus the AFC champions and losing 41-0 would be a stain on the franchise for decades.

This is the punishment of the Weauxf Gawdz for bandwagon fans straddling the fence waiting to see who won, a game neither team can be proud of. Thanks to you, we all suffer, and I think you know who you are.