Fumarama

I was listening to the Slate Gabfest the other day, and the usual gab-festers were out and instead gab-festing were three New York Slate editors. So in honor of their "coup", they dedicated their third segment to DC vs. NY. Of-course New York won, since they are all from New York and because it is SO CLEARLY the superior city. As one of their arguments on why DC is so lame is the fact that the Real World is here and we DC-ers are so excited about the Real World. Well, that is total BS. I talk to DC residents every day and they all seem indifferent to the Real World. Except for me. I totally want to run into them. At first, I was all indifferent too, but I think that is just because in the back of my mind, I assumed I would see them. Now, that it has been months and I haven't, I am feeling frustrated.

Fine, it is irrelevant now, but people fail to give the show any credit. The Real World was a cultural milestone. The San Francisco season, with Pedro and HIV, and Puck the bike messenger, and Pam and Judd falling in love, that was compelling television. I was in middle school and watching Pedro on TV was pretty amazing. Dave Eggers dedicates like a third of a Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius to his audition for the show. And I am sure Dave Eggers thinks that he is culturally relevant.

So yes, some part of me will always think the Real World is cool. And it would be exciting to see them.

(For the record, I am way too lazy to actually stalk them.)

David Edelstein in his review in New York magazine better articulated my thoughts on Batman. He uses the word sadistic to describe the movie and it is the perfect word that I could not think of yesterday. Watching it, I felt like somone was torturing me. This happens a lot when I am watching a really violent or upsetting movie, but there was no release! (as I mentioned yesterday in my no happy ending remark.) It was torture that just ends. Even in Greek and Shakespearean, after everyone dies, there is someone who comes in and returns some sort of order to the play's universe. Here...nothing.

But also the Joker was in many way such an incoherent villain. I don't mean the whole not having a motivation thing, the movie addresses that. How does he pull off the pranks he pulls? To be able to rig two large boats to explode just hours after he rigged a hospital the night after he made two warehouses and a jail explodes, he must have a small army working for him. It is impossible to do all this alone. Where does he get all him minions? He is not charismatic. The movie covers that. And while he has money, he must have developed a reputation by that point of killing his henchmen. Plus, he is really really creepy, there are easier ways of making money, like selling drugs for the mob family.

Also, I felt this overwhelming need to wash the joker's hair. I think as someone who knows what it is like to have to deal with long curly hair, I felt the need to help, perhaps offer him some product.

Finally, what superhero movie is so dark that they kill the girl? They never kill the girl.

God, that was so creepy. About an hour in, I started thinking about how much I wanted to walk out. I was not enjoying myself ,I was so terrified, it was like was a horror movie. But I didn't, I wanted to save face with my friends. But aren't superhero movies supposed to be fun? And also, aren't all the characters in Batman supposed to have human alter egos and then they turn into supercharacters at night? I really wanted to see Heath Ledger without the make-up, just so I would have one last movie memory of him. I need to watch 10 things I hate about you.

Also, with all these sequels, there are no more happy endings. I mean I may have been ok with all the violence and horrible joker scenes if there was some sort of happy ending. But the movie ends with the joker still alive and Batman being chased by dogs. I wish there had been a parade. And that Batman got the girl. Ok, maybe Batman getting the girl is too much, but that Harvey stayed good and he saved gotham and got the girl. But instead, they have to set it up for the next Batman. But unlike, say a trilogy where you know, Hans Solo may be frozen and the galaxy in danger now, but wait two years and there will be ewoks and love, there is never going to be a happy ending, because there can always be another Batman movie.

On a side note, ahhhh...Christian Bale is so....sigh worthy.

McCain's stated favorite tv shows are the Office, Lost, and the Tudors on Showtime. I thought I would let you know.

I was in the Venetian all depressed because I just lost all moy money in poker. I had a king high two card flush, which I lost to a fall house. Problem is: I totally did not notice the full house on the table. So I felt extra sad because it was stupid to bet all my money when I should have seen said full house. And I had tried calling my friends, who were off wandering somewhere, like 6 times but they were not picking up their phone, and it was freezing in the casino but it like 100 degrees outside so I didn't want to go there either and I was thinking of giving in to the mind numbing bright lights of a slot machine...when suddenly I look up and walking by are a group of 5 people that include two of my favorite General Hospital characters: Spinelli and Patrick Drake. They look exactly like they do on tv--I understand this has something to do with the way soap operas are shot--except that they are not dressed like their characters. Spinelli is a computer whiz and Patrick is a brain surgeon but both actors (whose names I do not know) were dressed like hungover, rich surfer boys, or maybe this is what we call wealthy Vegas style. And so I stared at them for a while and they clearly realized that I recognized them (I was briefly insulted by this, "do I look like one of the 2 million or so people in America who watch general hospital?" I asked my friends. "but you do watch General Hospital" one of my friends pointed out) and seemed somewhat uncomfortable. But really what I was thinking as I was staring was that while in New York I would pretend not to see John Waters and Alan Rickman on the street in Las Vegas I felt I could openly gawk at Soap Stars in a casino. Man, this was a great town.

From A.O. Scott's review of 27 dresses:

At the beginning of “27 Dresses,” Jane (Katherine Heigl), a serial bridesmaid with an almost pathological devotion to other people’s nuptials, spends a long night shuttling between two weddings. One is in Midtown Manhattan, the other in Brooklyn; one has an upper-crusty, white-bread look, while the other appears to be a Jewish-Hindu intermarriage. But as the director, Anne Fletcher, methodically cuts back and forth between them, she makes the reasonably insightful, moderately funny point that modern American weddings, however they may strain for individuality and specialness, are all pretty much alike.

The problem is that much the same could be said about modern American romantic comedies. There is a touch of idiosyncrasy here and there — in this one the heroine’s dad is a widower who owns a hardware store! — but most of the elements might as well have been pulled off the registry list at a high-end chain store.

The template is something like this: A career woman who lives in a bright and perky city (though usually not the one in which it was filmed; most of this Manhattan is actually Providence, R.I.) takes a bit under two hours to make it to the altar with (or at least be stopped at the airport by) the Right Guy, who had seemed at first to be the Wrong Guy. Earlier, the Wrong Guy had seemed to be the Right Guy.

I agree. It was a total paint by numbers romantic comedy. But if you love the genre (which I do), that is good enough. It was so perfect as a romantic comedy that I feel like the movie could serve as a manual for other aspiring rom-com writers. So, future romantic comedy writers, if you put these 9 elements (numbered, to go with the paint by numbers theme) in a movie, you too can create a movie I will happily watch over and over again on basic cable.

1. Woman who the audience is supposed to think is normal looking, just like them (Katherine Heigel)
2. good looking, witty Mr. Right with respectable job. (Jame Mardsen)
3. Complicated plot in which characters initially not interested but then fall in love (He is using her to get ahead in his career)
4. Banter.
5. Singing or dancing theme hopefully to well-known song. (In this movie, they did Benny and the Jets)
6. Big reveal after she has fallen for him. (Article about her being a bridesmaid 27 times comes used to further his career comes out after night of drunken singing and sex)
7. post-fight or big reveal montage of both characters feeling sad and looking into middle distance.
8. Emotional sharing. This is where they reveal their feelings for one another. (He comes to her sister's rehearsal dinner and says she deserves to be taken care of. She jumps on boat and says she is falling in love with him.)
9. Wedding.

It had a character called Tiny Shorts Guy, who was supposed to be funny, I think, but I could not/still cannot believe that the writers thought this was humor. It was just a character who was really uncool, nerdy if you will. His whole thing was that he was really uncool (I can't think of a better word because I think it would give the character more depth than he was given in the movie) so that Dempsy and his friends wanted nothing to do with him, but he hung around anyway. Really? Seriously? Who did the writers think was their intended audience? 10 year old boys? Because, you know, the writers are off. This is a chick flick, intended for women. And I can't think of a single woman, even 10 year old women, who would be like, oh look, really nerdy guy with tiny shorts....hahahaha.

The folks I saw the movie with seemed in total agreement that Iron Man is a lesser comic book story, and has nothing on the Batmans, Supermans, and Spidermans of the world. And I guess they are right about parts of the origination story. Even though I cannot think of a single other character in the same position, the whole arms dealer who realizes he is responsible for all these deaths and so decides to save the world strikes me as trite. That being said, I love the way in which he becomes Iron Man. It is traditional problem solving. Stark realizes he has a problem, he has been helping destroy the world. So he comes up with a solution, turn into a superhero. (seems logical enough) and next he has to figure out and take the steps necessary to implement his chosen solution. And so the audience gets to see all the steps, the trial and error, the frustration, the joy of finally achieving it. All using nothing but his brain power and some gadgets. It is kind of like solving a legal research question. I found it all very relatable.

That, and I love that at the end he tells everyone that he is Iron Man. One of the people I aw the movie with tried to explain to me that this was some sort of joke because (I think) in the comic books the cover is always that Iron Man is Stark's body guard. Anyway, either way, I thought it was great because it made Stark so much more normal. I am sort of tired of these total self-sacrificing/scardy-cat superheros who won't tell anyone who they really are.

Things I used to really like about General Hospital:

1. Good Girls. General Hospital would have these female characters that were "good." You know nice and kind and easy to get along with. And all the other characters would like them. And they would have plot lines like they would fall in and out of love and sometimes they would get sick and lots of people would come in and wish them well. These were characters like Emily and Georgie and for a while, Elizabeth. And the ultimate good girl, Lila, who would just sit in her wheelchair and have lovely conversations with people about how much she loved them. The show also had more vindictive, sometimes good female characters (Carly, Sam) and downright evil women characters (Helena) but I always liked that there were good girls that I could always root for and who could order other characters to get along or for whose sake other characters would put aside their differences. Most the characters, especially the females, plot and scheme and hate each other. The good girls added a sweetness to the show and often a lightheartedness. It was comforting to take a break and hang out with these characters. Now most tv shows can't afford to have these purely good characters because these shows simply do not have a sufficiently large number of characters. If a show only has handfull of characters, you can't waste one by making the character saintly. And if you do, it gets really boring. See Dawson's Creek the College Years (ruining Joey by making her unbearably good).

2. Lots of romantic relationships. I am a big fan of the romantic comedy. Boy and girl meet, boy and girl not sure of each other, stuff happens, boy and girl fall in love. The thing you can count on in General Hospital is that somewhere among the the 20 storylines, there is always one story about two people falling in love. This is different from prime time shows in which there is one, maybe two, central romances. The writers have to keep the romantic tension going for seasons, to the point where tv watchers start to get sick of it or forget it exists. See Josh and Donna on the West Wing (I think by season 3 I just wanted them to move on). Or the writers give into the tension and then have to figure out how to make the romance remain interesting or break the couple up. See Luke and Lorelai on Gilmore Girls (Luke's long lost daughter). But on General Hospital, there are so many potential couples, this is a nonissue. I mean they still have the problem of having to break a couple up soon after getting them together, which can be annoying, but there is never the problem of no romance on the show, because somewhere there is always a budding romance.

3. Families and long histories. I love that the number of characters on the show allow for long extended histories and nice big families. Having 4 generations of family on a show is like a great epic novel. And there is so much history. Lucky's father hated Nichola's father but they are brothers and the best of friends. Characters have known each other for years and so they can have true love/hate relationships. Friendships seem real since you have seen characters go through so much. And if you were so inclined, you could watch an episode from 30 years ago and be fascinated by what the old characters looked like when they were young. They can reference history. It gives a sense that there is a really community there.

Of late, General Hospital has kicked off its good girl characters. Both Emily and Georgie were murdered by the text message killer. Elizabeth is less good. She has developed an enemy in Sam and perhaps ran her over, and is now blackmailing her. Lila is of-course long gone since the actress died. The only good girl character left is Robin Scorpio, and I heart scenes with her but that is simply not enough. They have also slowly gotten rid of Quartermaine characters. The Quartermaines were like the ultimate GH family. Instead they brought in a new gangster family that we know nothing about.

That is actually the worst part. The show is now about the mob. I think that once upon a time it used to be a show about a hospital but for the decade or so that I have been following the show, it was a soap about a bunch of people with some wierd mob elements. But now, the mob is all it is about. They brought back Jerry Jax as this wierd evil mob boss. And as mentioned above, brought in three new random and one not entirely random mob characters. And nearly every remaining major character seems to be somehow connected to this mob war, which is the central plot of the show. And the mob storyline is so dark. I think what really threw me over the edge was Sonny, who I have never liked but is supposed to be one of the main characters, actually more or less tortured and threatened to torture another character for kidnapping his son, except we all knew the character never kidnapped his son. Also, the serial killer story line ended with a long stretch of Diego basically torturing women. And Jerry Jax had a character murdered while he was on the phone with his mother! There is just no saving grace here. I guess there is some budding romance somewhere in there. But even that seems kind of dark. Maxie and Spinelli trying to find Georgie's killer together.

General Hospital has always been shitty television but it used to provide me with something that other shows did not. Lots of silly love storylines, pointless uninteresting characters I could love, and connections and family trees that appealed to my love of putting pieces together or mapping or something. And I thought the show did this because it was immune from the needs of other tv shows. But it is like somewhere along the way they decided that violent mob shows is what sells and also that killing off lots and lots of characters sells. And they decided to be a very shitty Sopranoes. ( I have never seen the Sopranoes but I think that is what they were emulating). And this decision is the lamest thing ever

The 35 girls are flown to LA or wherever and then Ms. Jay and Mr. Jay walk out and all the girls start screaming, and it is like it is the 60s and they are seeing the Beatles for the first time. And I am watching and thinking: "you know, they are not that exciting or cool or even famous." But there the women are, screaming, and my god, you should have seen the orgasmic excitement when Tyra Banks walks in, and it is so strange, but Tyra has built this universe in which the goal is being fierce and the most exciting people in the world are the Jays. It reminds me of boys and things that I have never been into, like dungeons and dragons or something, where there are these universes that are created and these universes establish what is important and what is not. And ANTM is Tyra universe.

The friend I saw the movie with put it this way: "you know how some movies the trailers make you think it is going to be funny sad, but then the real movie is sad with the five funny lines they put in the trailer." Yes, I do know that experience and it was the experience of watching the Savages. I am not saying the movie was bad exactly. It was very realistic. The characters talked and acted like real people that I feel like I know. It was neither dumbed or silent nor where they far too clever. And the emotional reactions seemed very true to life. It is just that movie had no plot, and it felt so unbelievably long. Basically, it was two hours of watching someone else's shitty middle class life.

So I had not watched Friday Night Lights as the episodes came out even thought I have been raving about the show and telling everyone who would listen that it was the best show ever. I am not sure why, I think I was afraid that I was going to get attached all over again and then NBC was going to take it away from me. Fear of abandonment really. Regardless of the reason, I made a poor tv choice, but I have changed my ways, and have been catching up online. And of-course, the episodes have been great.

Except...

What is wrong with the adults of Dillon, Texas that they keep going after children? What i found strange about last season's Riggins the 30 something neighbor last year sexual relationship is that no one commented on the fact that this was statutory rape, it just sort of happened. But then I figured this is one of the ways in which the show is interesting, since it does not resort to melodrama but portrays very realistically what can be a very harsh life, especially for the character of Riggins. And this is totally something Riggins would do. But then this past season they added two new adult/teen sexual tension story lines. Matt and the nurse who takes care of his grandmom, and the Julie and the newspaper prof. Which is kind of ridiculous because it begs my question, what is wrong with all these adults who are getting romantically entangled with children? Does the show really need to be doing this? Couldn't they just add more teenage characters instead of creating a series of inappropriate and borderline creepy relationships?

The movie is basically about how a Texas congressman, a Houston socialite, and a CIA agent get together to supply the Afghan mujahedeen with weapons to defeat the Soviets in the 1980s. The three protagonists succeed in doing just that, and then we get a scene in which we see two Russian helicopters pilots talking crudely (first about how they are hunting Afghans and then about women and commitment) while the Afghans with their new American weapon nervously get ready to shoot the helicopter down. The Russians are laughing and having a good time when the Afghans shoot and kill them. The Afghans, excited, run off. This scene is followed by a montage of Afgans shooting down Soviet helicopters, Charlie getting more money for the covert operation, and green script on the screen telling us how many helicopters were shot by the Afghans in a given year. It was like something out of Hot Shots or something. It was not just a throwback to an 80s war movie, it was so over the top it was like a spoof of one. In this day and age, our war movies are like the Clint Eastwood's Flag of our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima, portraits of how both sides have an equally devastating story. Who still kills Russians in their movies?

I was so uncomfortable during those scenes. I mean covered my eyes, couldn't watch unconfortable. To have the uplifting climax with the music and cheering for something that we know will ultimately be so destructive was upsetting. But I swear someone next to me in the theater clapped. My friend afterward stated that clearly these scenes were meant to be ironic. He even argued that they looked Dr. Strangelove-esque. It has been a very long time since I have seen Dr. Strangelove, but my memory of the movie is that every moment in the film is very clearly satire. Charlie Wilson's War is breezy and light but it is not all satire. The filmmakers are telling a story with jokes thrown in but the movie is not mocking anyone. And yes, the story itself has an underlying irony but that irony is pointed out pretty explicitly at the end of the film. Which brings me back to the montage in question. If it is meant to be ironic, it is tonally different than the rest of the movie. CWW would be a 97 minute movie with 10 minutes of satire stuck in towards the end. But at the same time, the majority of the audience knows where this weapon and training from the United States is ultimately headed and would suffer from the same cognitive dissonance that I did. So maybe Sorkin and Nichols could have predicted this audience reaction.

Basically, I can't decide if this series of scenes are brilliant because they point out our expectations about tone in movies and by doing that our expectations about narrative. What I mean is that once we got to know and like the characters, we expect their actions and the results of their actions to be good. By playing the scene without indicating any irony while the audience feels like it should be played for irony reenforces the tension underlying the movie beween the pure intentions of the players and the consequences. In a purely fictional movie, we would cheer with the actors in the film, but instead here we feel strange even there is no indication that the characters feel strange. It is a very powerful show of how our best intentions can get very screwed up. Or whether these scenes are just some leftover 80s nostalgic jingoism?

1. They did not tell us the superpower of Hiro's dad, or Nathan and Peter's parents, or the woman who invented the virus. I am a big proponent (the only proponent I know) of the theory that if a piece of fiction/entertainment is not going to give all the answers, it has to surpass a certain threshold of quality. So for example, I have never seen the Sopranos but theoretically, a show like the Sopranos that bent all the rules on what a tv show could be could get away with an ambiguous ending, but Heroes is no Sopranos. It is kind of a clumsy show, part of its charm is that it can be kind of over the top and campy. Why is the show not embracing this standard? give me answers!

2. They killed Nathan Petrelli. He was my favorite character. The first couple of times that shows killed major characters in tv shows it was pretty cool because suddenly shows became less predictable, you could never be sure that everything would be ok. (Everwood, of-course, did this first and best.) But now that there are these shows with a million characters, you basically know that they will kill someone every sweeps season and it has become another predictable plot point.

3 The repeating superpowers. When I first read in Entertainment Weekly that they were planning to allow multiple characters to have the same power it seemed like a good idea, a way to get around the problem of giving people lamer and lamer powers because they ran out of ideas. But once I saw it in practice, I did not like it. One of the pleasures of the show was when they introduced new characters because the question was what new power they would come up with. Now with the repeat powers, one of the fun things about the show is gone.

4. How many heroes are there? So does this mutation happen to a select handful of people or is it like X-men when there are a whole subset of people who have a mutation. Last season, they made Heroes seem like X-men when they had the story line 5 years later with rounding up all the heroes. It made it seem like Heroes were a group in the population like a race or ethnicity. But then this season they made it seem like there had only been 13 heroes in the previous generation and also it was a mutation that seemed to be passed through families. So what is it, are there like 30 Heroes or like hundreds of Heroes?

5. What was the overarching plot? The Ashanti virus? Were you compelled? I was not.

I loved it.

Update 12/25: I still love it but I want to ask: why would a couple as rich and super as Jeniffer Garner and Jason Bateman advertise for a child in the pennysavers? I mean I know this method proved effective but wouldn't they have some super rich people way of going about it?

I loved like the first 10 minutes. It was a very funny send up of the whole Disney movie thing. There is this pretty maiden who lives in a tree. She has lovely dreams about true love's kiss and then wakes up and sings about it to her cartoon animal friends. There is a cartoon chipmunk as well as birds and deer who all help her. Giselle is this innocent maiden who lived with her cartoon animal friends and she sings about true love's kiss while her animal friends help her do things. And it is all very lovely and happy. (This is actually very similar to how I picture attending Yale law school, except the woman does not necessarily need to be a mainden and instead of singing about true love she sings about constitutional moments or something.) The prince hears her and immediately knows he must marry this woman. They meet, continue the song, and decide to have their ceremony the next day. Perfect.

Of-course there is an evil step mother who ruins the plan by sending Giselle to a place where are no happily ever afters, New York City. (Now that I have left I have reromanticized New York as the town of endless hope and possibility, and so my first thought was you are wrong evil stepmother, New York is totally the land of happily ever after.) Anyway, she meets Patrick Dempsey, a cynical divorce lawyer, and begins the process of warming his heart. And this is where I ran into trouble with the movie.

I also watched two episodes of the Girls Next Door today. This is the show about Hugh Hefner's girlfriends on E. And what has struck me about this show is that Hef will have these dinner parties and he will bring other old men with thier respective twenty-something blonde girlfriends. And so you will have this interesting dynamic of older, all fairly accomplished, probably very intelligent old men, with these very young women. And because the show is about the young women not Hef, you will just kind of see these men indulge the women. But I always imagine them later off to the side engaging in serious conversations. And it is like the girls are children or something.

And that is my problem with Giselle, she is a red-headed girl next door. She is a child, all sweet, and pure, and innocent. And Dempsy is playing a middle aged lawyer more or less. And basically he just falls in love with innocence. It is a little creepy. And I watch Girls Next Door, I am not saying that young and innocent isn't a male fantasy, but this movie was made for little girls. And the over the top Disney version of cartoon princes falling at first glance for pretty women is ok, because the princes are usually pretty innocent too. But to send a message to little girls that innocence wins over flesh and blood men, that was different. It was strange and kind of upsetting.

American Gangster is not a good enough movie for Russell Crowe to look all shlubby.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie. And I know that theoretically it is supposed to be oscar bait, but it reminded me of a movie like the Inside Man, an well-executed, entertaining movie about cops and robbers but ultimately not much more. Which gets me back to my original point. I am all for actors gaining and losing weight so that they can fully inhabit their characters but I just don't think the boy scout cop played by Crowe needed to have that bit of a gut. I mean I think the role would have been just as believable and the acting just as good if Crowe had maintained his perfect pectoral muscles and perhaps gratutiously taken off his shirt a couple of times.

I just rewatched the episode of Gilmore Girls in which Rory graduates from Chilton. As valedictorian she gets to make a speech. The speech starts out with a stupid preamble about how they thought this day would never come in (complete with a laugh track for that line). Then she launches into how she lives in two worlds, the world of books and the world of her family and friends, and then she begins to thank her grandparents and mother and all the people who care about her and tears up in front of the whole crowd (this is cut with scenes of Lorelai and Sookie and Jackson and Luke crying).

Worst graduation speech ever. Ok, I am exaggerating but it was a bad speech and this is why. It is a pretty huge day for all the students and their parents. This ceremony is equally special and important to everyone and it should feel that way to everyone equally. Giving a speech at such an event is a public service. You are adding to that moment for each person. A great speech either reflects what everyone is feeling or inspires people. But it should be about the audience. Unless the speaker is using a universal "I" that reflects what students are thinking (I will miss this school dearly...), oneself is a bad topic. Rory has the honor to speak to her classmates on one of the biggest days of their lives, why in the world does she think that she herself the best topic for the speech?

I spent part of my morning watching clips online from Nicole Ritchie's GMA interview. (like this one on Gawker). She is great. Not only does she look amazing but she is really poised and not dumb. So I thought "good. Now she can go back to whatever she was doing." But then...um...I realized. Is it possible that Nicole Ritchie is only famous for being Paris Hilton's BFF? Her fame is just derivative fame of Paris Hilton's fame for nothing?

Maybe Nicole will be really cool and decide to leave the spotlight and raise her kid and go to charity events and do whatever people who are rich enough not to have to work for a living do. Is that too much to hope for her?

The book after the point they get captured by snatchers and brought to the Malfoy's Manor was great. And the first hundred pages until and including the ministary break in that was pretty good too. But there is that whole section in the middle that I actually found really hard to get through.

The book turned into a certain kind of book that I can't handle, usually the imprisonment book. I read Bernard's Malamud's Fixer in high school and I got through it but barely. I could not handle the page after page of description of a person's constant fear and misery. I get too emotionally involved and then too upsetl. I felt the same way through the prison parts of Waiting for the Barbarians. (Both those books were read for school). And now Harry Potter Book 7 can be added to the list. In other books, Rowling would intersperse among the fear of you know who scenes with quidditch or classes or something like that. Here, all there was for like 300 pages was Harry and Hermoine and Ron being scared. There was no break from it and it was really hard to feel something other than just terrible for them.

But the pay-off was incredible. Once they got to Hogwarts and found out that all their old friends had taken up the fight, I started to cry. It was really touching. I agree with the critics who say that Snape should have been in the novel more. I also wish there has been more with Ron and Hermoine and Harry and Ginny. Because apparently I really wanted to be reading a romance novel, Rowling would have Ron/Hermoine seens and Rowling would write something like "and Harry averted his eyes" and I would be like "No Harry. Don't avert I want to know what happens next."

I liked the idea of the epilogue but I wish there were more details. I mean I wanted to know what happened to all the characters, what their jobs were, who was minister of magic, etc.

Ever since I heard about this movie I have been wondering, if the movie came about because a bunch of suits sat around a room and where like what is in now? cooking. Which is how they decided to build a rom com around cooking. And then they continued in thier seats and were like, you know what else is in? Taking movies from other countries and remaking them in English. And so came about No Reservations, based on a German film. It just felt so convenient that this movie came up just as there were like 3 reality tv cooking competitions on tv at once.

As for the movie itself, it was ok. I mean I liked it but I like some bad shit. Catherine Zeta-Jones is so beautiful. (People sometimes ask me if I could look like anyone, who would it be? there is your answer). But her character isn't written like any human being. I think she is supposed to be uptight, but then suddenly she is running around New York with Aaron Eckhart and getting into pillow fights with her 11 year old adopted niece. There is not really any period of transformation. One minute she has a stick up her ass, and then it disappears and we the audience don't get to see the operation. The other actors are great. One of the reviews said that Eckhart without the evil is just not as good, but I disagree. His character was written blah but his acting made him strange and hilarious and great. Abigail Breslin was fantastic too. Also, snazzy dresser. I totally wished I could dress like her in this movie: colorful hats, and scarfs, and skirts, and stocking, and red boots.

I have had another celebrity-spotting. This one included speaking.

I was on an Amtrak to DC when Amanda Peet asked me to switch seats so that she, her mother, and her baby could all sit in one set of seats. I obliged (this was before I realized who it was). And then I looked up and realized who it was. She is tiny. At first I thought she was a teenage mother, it was only on seeing her face (and she has a pretty distinctive face) that I realized who she was.

Anyway, I sat across the aisle from them. I spent the train ride thinking it was odd that I knew so much about this woman, like where she went to college (Columbia!) and the name of her kid (ok, i can't remember the name of her baby but i know I saw it when it was published in EW) and I pretended this was a normal interaction with a stranger.

I also thought about how she got to live my greatest dream, being a character in Aaron Sorkin's imagination. Sadly, at this point, his imagination began to suck.

I believe I may have celebrity-spotted Judd Apatow, a week ago (Thursday July 19) in the Jamba Juice on Houston and Mercer. I am not entirely sure it was him. I think it was him because his hair and beard were much like they are in the picture at this url.
http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Events/4325/JuddApatow_Grani_7280943_400.jpg. Which is to say he had dark longish hair and a beard. He walked in with another nerdy looking Jewish guy but then said hi to some 6 foot tall beautiful woman who had no business talking to just a regular guy. But then again Judd Apatow is 40, and this guy looked like early 30s to me. Also, doesn't Apatow live in LA, if he was visiting New York, why would he be in a random neighborhood jamba juice? and finally, I kept staring at him trying to figure it out and he noticed and did not seem aloof. Most celebrities I see seem so used to be looked at that they don't seem to notice or if they do, roll their eyes and look away.

Anyway, if this was a true celebrity spotting, it might be my best one yet. There is something poignant now about the activity since I only have 10 or so more days as a New Yorker. So here they are...they were supposed to be in order I thought was most exciting to least, but blogger won't let me cut and paste inside a post so here they are in order i remembered them.

Alan Rickman -- A couple of months ago I was walking down McDougal towards Bleeker (to my then favorite pizza place which has since closed down because there was a shooting there) and suddenly look up at this man who is looking at me meanly. And I am like: seen that mean face before, oh my god it is Snape.

Adam Brody -- restaurant on like 22 or 23 between 5th and 6th somewhere. It was during the first season of the OC so it was very exciting. It retrospect it seems kind of lame.

Paul Rudd -- on the subway in college. At the time I thought he was the best looking person I had ever seen in person. I saw him again recently at the Of Motreal Karoke show (seeing celebs at shows where their friends are performing does not count) and I no longer thought so.

Julianna Margulies --3rd and Laguardia, like 3 days after I saw Snape. She seemed very serene.

Harold from Top Chef -- all the time. His restaurant is around here.

Daniel of Project Runway -- In Grey Dog. I saw someone actually go up and ask to take a picture. It seemed very ballsy. I just stared.

Julia Stiles -- University and something, talking on her cell. She is cute but she looks like any other girl living in the village who would be working for PR, or an I-Bank or something. But she looks normal not like someone you would instantly hate.

Milo Ventimiglia -- this was last year, pre-heroes, but post Gilmore Girls, post break up with actress Rory. I saw him at the Bleeker street 6 subway station. He has black hair and was wearing all black, but has blue eyes so he was actually quite striking. I was like oh, good looking guy. But short. Then I did a double take being like...huh and then turned away, and then did a triple take. I kept waiting for someone else to go up and ask for a pic or something. Or at least for other people to be starting. But that is what made it so wierd, it was like no else recognized him. I, however, as a once adamant Jess fan was very excited.

John Waters -- Walking down 6th ave saw a strange looking, tall wiry man. Kept walking. Then got pretty excited.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas -- My first ever celebrity spotting of a celebrity who did not go to Columbia. (Those don't count so they are not mentioned here). I had bizzarely decided to walk from my job which was south of the former world trade center (this was in early october of 2001) until Columbia, which is at 116th. Around Tribeca, I spotted JTT. He was racing somewhere and was very short. We were the only people on the street and i was looking pretty intently at him and he did not seem to notice. That is how I was certain he was famous.

Ryan Hansen -- He plays Dick Casablancas on Veronica Mars. If you still don't who that is, I urge you to go rent the first season of that show right now! You will thank me. I went to see the drowsy Chaperone and as I was leaving, there he was. We were sitting near the very top and so I was surprised to see an arguably famous person nearby. He was wearing this scarf around his neck that his fictional alter ego would make fun of him for

David Schwimmer -- In Murrays Cheese, a great cheese place in the village, on Monday. I know that this is after my possible Apatow sighting but I started this post Sunday night and I know for sure it was Schwimmer. He walked in and kind of stood by the counter and the guy was like oh hi and then he got a bunch of personal service in the cracker section. He was a big guy. I don't just mean tall, built too. I always perceived Ross as being a skinny, nerdy Jewish guy so I never realized how big the actor really was.

I spent all day watching Live Earth (while studying for the bar). Rravo had it on all day. And in between the performances that they selected to show they had celebrities doing 30 second spots about what you can do to "join the movement" (turn off the lights when leaving the room! recycle!). Each of these ads and every commercial break ended with the letters SOS and then the two Ss would disappear to reveal a sphere (globe-like) and then the morse code distress code, three dots, three lines, and then three dots). This goes on all day.

Now I know all day that Police in slated to close the New York concert, but it is not until they hit the stage at 11 that I am like, wait, don't the Police have that song about sending out an SOS because they are on an island or something and this is a message in a bottle. And I am like, no it can't be, the whole theme of this show cannot exist so that the Police can appropriately end with that song. But sure enough, at 11:23, Sting (god, he is still hot) invites John Mayer and Kanye West on stage and they all sing that song.

But here was my thought, besides shock that i had not figured it out eariler, I know that the Police just reunited or whatever, but were they really so big that the whole day had to be dedicated to their song? I mean Madonna closed the show in London. Couldn't the show be named after one of her songs? say (Organic) Material girl. She could have ended the show in London singing it along with other London performers the Pussycat Dolls and the Beastie Boys. I would have found it funny although I guess anything that is not the bar is funny at this point.

Another highlight of my Live Earth watching was mixing up Keith Urban with Toby Keith. I read the list of people performing in New York and i was like wow, I did not think Toby Keith would play a concert for the environment or one organized by Al Gore. I guess people are interesting and surprising. But then I realized I was wrong and my optimism about people's ability to surprise me was shot down. It has been a tough week with Paris Hilton, and Scooter Libby and not Toby Keith letting me down.

Do you think maybe now that Scooter Libby barely escaped going to jail he will go out and advocate for more merciful prison sentences?

A. I know this is about politics, a Fumarama no no, but it so nicely parallels my thoughts on Paris Hilton
B. Even if he could do it, would he have any credibility at this point?

Back in college when i loved the West Wing, and my biggest dream was to be a character in Aaron Sorkin's imagination, I remember having a discussion with my roommate on how it has always struck me as a little disconcerting that so many of my favorite tv shows are written by committee. I thought the West Wing model was better, one genius sitting in a room producing brilliant stories and writing, like a novel. Like with a novel, I liked the idea of connecting to another person's imagination or mind or something through a medium, in this case a television screen, as opposed to connecting with a mini-beaurocracy as you do with most shows. Now that i have sat through every god awful episode of Studio 60, I have changed my mind. Maybe if Sorkin had another mind to bounce against he would have produced a less obnoxious view on religion, or war, of for fuck's sake, comedy.

Take for example the whole Harry trying to explain to Matt and Danny about prayer. Her arguments just sounded off to me. I felt like Sorkin does not pray, he is not religious, he actually has no idea how to create a realistic Christian character and explain the virtue of prayer. I mean if only he had a writer on staff who did understand and could have actually written that section himself or herself.

Now that Paris Hilton is a changed person I keep hoping that she will do something really interesting like advocate for better mental health services in jail, or start an offender reentry program, or at least give money to an organization that advocates for a fairer criminal justice system. Of-course, none of this is happening, she is taking on the easy causes. You know Paris now likes children and puppies and kittens and hates cancer.



What I always found interesting about Paris Hilton is that her extreme wealth made her powerful enough that it really did not matter what people thought of her. Unlike her counterparts (Linday Lohan, Britney Spears) who get their money from the entertainment industry and so need the public to like them at least enough to buy records and movie tickets, Paris does not need our money nor our affection. If she wanted to start doing good, Paris would not have to limit herself to the type of work that is purely uncontroversial. I mean I am kidding myself because for all her power, Paris is just not original enough to do something off the beaten charity path. But that is the problem. If Paris is suddenly going to become a "good girl," she will be an awfully boring one.

This is a from an article about about Aaron Sorkin in January.

Last week, several dozen members of the press, on a field trip from the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, got a look inside the thought process of the man behind the show, Aaron Sorkin.

The end result of Sorkin’s hourlong aria to the critics clustered around the giant oval desk in the “Studio 60” writers’ room? I just don’t know what the man wants.

He said he doesn’t mind critiques or negative press. “It’s the cost of doing business,” he said more than once. “Not everything is for everybody.”

But it’s hard to square those remarks with several of Sorkin’s statements on Tuesday. First, his contention that the press isn’t writing about the content of his show, and is only focused on its disappointing ratings, doesn’t ring true.

“When the people are reading, `Gee, this show is tanking,’ they’re less likely to tune in than [if the pieces said] `Gee, there’s this show that everybody’s really excited about,’” said Sorkin, who noted that the show would have more of a romantic comedy feel going forward. “But that’s not your problem, it’s ours. Hopefully the next step will be that the ratings will tick up and you’ll start writing about that - or even better, about the content of the show.”

But people - television critics, bloggers, television critics with blogs, pretty much anyone with a computer keyboard - are writing about the content of the show. They’ve written that, despite a promising premise, many early episodes were heavy-handed and full of digressive rants. And they’ve said that the show within a show’s sketches are, well, bad.

A Los Angeles Times piece on Dec. 25, which included a collection of interviews with comedy professionals and with members of a sketch-comedy troupe reiterated these critiques.
That piece clearly got under Sorkin’s skin - he spoke forcefully about it for several minutes Tuesday. It seems that piece doesn’t qualify as “the cost of doing business.” Why? Because the people in that article are not “real comedy writers.” And the writers Deborah Netburn interviewed “are unemployed.”

“I read the headline and [I thought], `Does [Stephen] Colbert not like the show? Does Billy Crystal not like the show? Tina Fey? Seth Myers? Real comedy writers - do they not like the show? No, she wasn’t talking about those people,” Sorkin said. “I would encourage you to go to the Web site for Employee of the Month, the improvisational comedy troupe that was complaining about the show, you will discover that they are unemployed and disgruntled.”
I guess Sorkin skimmed over the comments from a comedy showrunner, and the part in which a former “Saturday Night Live” employee was interviewed. Another employed professional interviewed for the piece, Ken Levine, wrote for “M*A*S*H,” “Cheers” and “Frasier.” In TV comedy, you don’t get much realer than that.

“I am a fan of his work, was hoping ‘Studio 60’ would be better, and would further hope that the criticism writers offer him would be taken constructively and not defensively,” Levine said in an e-mail.

Still, the subject of online critiques of his work - which the L.A. Times piece cited - set Sorkin off again.

“I do believe that we’ve seen an enormous rise in amateurism,” Sorkin said. “One of the things I find troubling about the Internet, as great a resource tool as it is, and as nice as it is that we can all communicate with each other, and that everybody has a voice - the thing is, everybody’s voice oughtn’t be equal.”

“You people are credentialed journalists in here… There’s a certain understanding that you had to be good to have gotten that job,” Sorkin continued. “When The New York Times quotes a blogger, saying `PastyBoy2000 says this,’ suddenly you give it the imprimatur of the New York Times - that’s, first of all, lazy on the part of The New York Times, second of all, incredibly misleading.”

I actually can't explain all that i think is wrong with the above excerpt. But I am not credentialed by a real newspaper so really whatever I think is probably stupid. I want to point this out. You know the show has become truly unbearable when the fans are equally bad. You don't catch very many people being self-righteous about the tv they watch. I mean there are plenty of people self-righteous about not watching tv, but once you are on the tv chat, there is not a whole lot of, I am better than you because I like House and you like Heroes. But then on yesterday's Wapo chat there was the following exchange:

Washington: Is it just me or do these last episodes of "Studio 60" seem preachier than ever? It's so meta I hardly can stand it.

Lisa de Moraes: Last night's episode was very odd. NBC, NBS or whatever the networks is called, is contemplating spending $10 million to rescue the brother of a cast member on their SNL show? Huh? Ditto the come-pray-with-me bit at the end.

Arlington, Va.: Yeah, "Studio 60" was strange -- because it was a well written and complex episode of television. It wasn't "reality" garbage. NBC is going to have a large audience of idiots for the 8 p.m. hour next year. Enjoy it.

It actually was not. It was not a complex episode of television at all. But that is not the point. This Arlington, VA guy thinks he is smarter than you because he likes Studio 60 and you don't. Seriously.

This review by Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post pretty much captures my feelings about the movie.


She basically says that it is a great, funny movie, but that it is hard to believe the central romance of the movie. She gives her reasons very eloquently and so there is no reason for me to repeat them here. But I want to add something. She is too old for him! We are not given Alison's age in the movie, although we are given Ben's (which is 23). Is Alison supposed to be 23 too? Because it does not feel like she is playing a 23 year old woman. She just seems too comfortable in her job. She just struck me like a character out of Sex and the City. Her reaction to Ben at first reminded me of that episode in which Carrie talks about dating men in their twenties. And her whole approach to the baby reminded me as that of Miranda: which was something along the lines of this is something my career will have to deal with. Katherine Heigl is almost 29 and Seth Rogen is 25. 3.5 isn't always a huge difference but it can be. The whole premise of the movie is that she is more or less maturely ready to have this baby, and he has to grow up. Well, there is no question Ben's development is arrested. But he is being compared to her level of development. Is doesn't seem quite fair to compare a person in their early 20s with a person in their late 20s.

I mean my particular problem with the couple is the same as everyone's problem with the movie as a whole, that Alison is not a particularly well-defined character. I think maybe if they had given her more context: particularly a specific point in life, the coupling might have seemed more realistic.

Kristin Chenoweth was on the season finale of Ugly Betty as a dental hygenist obsessed with romantic comedies. I am not entirely fluent with Kristin Chenoweth's body of work, but it seems to me that Ugly Betty's campy humor is where her skills lie. She is most famous for Broadway musicals, a genre in which campy humor reigns supreme.

This is another reason why Studio 60 (now cancelled) was such a bad show. Sorkin based his main female character, Harriet, on Chenoweth, but then seemed to miss Chenoweth's brand of humor entirely. He completely failed to capture this absurd, over the top spirit that Chenoweth brings to her characters. It is just funny that Sorkin created a show with one of his ex girlfriends as the inspiration for the main character and it seems fairly obvious that this show is one that his ex would never ever act on.

I was at the Museum of Television and Radio today and watched one of those Steve Martin on SNL retrospectives. Among the skits shown was one with Dan Aykroyd called "Two Wild and Crazy Brothers" about the Festrunk brothers, a pair of horny, clueless brothers from Czechoslavakia. Why has there not been more comments about how similar the characters in this skit are to Borat? I mean they have the exact same accent and the same manner of speech. Also, the same sort of objectification of women and similar jokes about poverty in the homeland.

Here are passages from the transcript:

Georg Festrunk: And here is a thing I will tell you: that two swinging foxes have the hots-on for us, and are coming here tonight to let us hold on to their big American breasts!

Yortuk Festrunk: [ pours some drinks ] Why not? There's nothing preventing them. After all, there is no other pair of Czech brothers who cruise and swing so successfuly in tight slacks!

Georg Festrunk: [ sips his drink and toasts Yortuk ] We are.. two wild and crazy guys!

Yortuk Festrunk: [ walks into the living room ] Oh, no.. our bachelor pad certainly is messed around. Soon, will be the foxes. Where is the portable floor vacuum that we brought with us from Czechoslavakia?

Georg Festrunk: Wait here now, and you'll find out! [ he wheels out the oversized industrial floor vacuum - Yortuk sucks up everything lying on their coffee table ] This floor vacuum is such a wonderful household convenience that we've wanted for many years!

Yortuk Festrunk: Yes! Usually, in Czechoslavakia, only high party officials of the Communist Party can get them right away!

Also

Georg Festrunk: Slap my hand, black soul man! [ extends his hand, Cliff slaps it ]
Cliff: [ extends his hand for a slap back, but Georg is mesmorized staring at his own slapped hand ] Uh, hi Georg, hi Yortuk. Hey, man, I was invited to this really hot party tonight. Do you guys wanna go?
Yortuk Festrunk: No way! That's your funeral! [ laughs ]
Georg Festrunk: Don't come crawling to us. Two hot fashion models from the fox bar will be here soon to give themselves to the Festrunk Brothers!
Cliff: [ perplexed ] You.. got two ladies coming here tonight? I don't believe it.
Georg Festrunk: We cruised for them in our tight slacks which give us great bulges!

See, what is most striking is the similarities in the diction. Words like great bulges, or black soul man, are of the same type of words that Borat uses. So did Sasha Baron Cohen intend to pay homage to this old skit? Or are all these characters referring to some earlier comedic character I am not familiar with?

There is a problem with visual entertainment about "great writers." If said brilliant writer is going to share her writing, the writing does indeed have to be brilliant. I can't remember which episode exactly, but I remember at some point is the college episodes of Dawson's Creek, Joey now wanted to be a writer (she wanted to be an artist first, remember? I wish the show had stuck with that), and so one of the episodes is narrarated as if she is writing it, and I remember getting kind of uncomfortable. "Wow, Joey Potter is actually awful. Are all her writing profs seduced by pretty?"

This was of-course also one of the biggest problems with Studio 60. All these writers were supposed to be so unbelievably funny. And Sorkin insisted on spending an absurd amount of time telling us how funny they were. And sadly, their skits were so very terrible.

So Stranger than Fiction (there are spoilers stop reading here if you don't want to know), the plot is that this guy one day wakes up to have his life narrarated by a British author. The author only writes tragedies, and in one line of the narration she says "little did he know..." that the fact that his watch stopped working and he had to get the time from a stranger "would lead to his imminent death." The watch was ineffectively trying to tell him that his love interest was across the street. Anyway, the knowledge of his imminent death drives the story since he changes his life, and tries to find the writer. Eventually, he does and she gives him the ending. Basically, his watch is set so that he always gets to the bus stop right in time to catch the bus, but because the stranger gave him the wrong time, his watch was a few minutes fast. Thus, he is at the bus stop in advance and is there when a boy rides his bike in front of the bus. He runs in front of the bus to save the boy and dies. Except the British author can no longer kill him because Harold has read the book and was willing to sacrifice himself for literature. So instead, Harold is just severely injured. The movies ends with a passage narrated from Emma Thompson's book about we are all connected or something. I can't remember. As my friend pointed out, it was really terrible writing.

But it was not the bad narration at the end that bothered me, my god, you should hear the narration on One Tree Hill (even I don't watch that show). It was the structure of the story within the story. The moment that drives the whole story, the one that leads to his imminent death...in terms of the movie plot it is perfect, since it is the catalyst for everything else. But for the underlying story...the fact that his watch goes nuts does not drive the author's story. It is this innocuous moment, as she says herself. Yes, he is a man obsessed with exact numbers, and yes his watch was trying to tell him something about his love interest, but for a moment to be followed by a line like this drove his imminent death, something far more important to the story of Howard Crick has to be happening at the moment. In the underlying novel (unlike the movie), the watch is not the catalyst for change. The watch does not set off the series of events that lead to his death. It just ends up killing him. Anyway, my point is that the fact that his watch kills him is not sufficiently ironic to merit it being a particularly interesting ending to the book. The movie failed not in writing necessarily, but in actually having its writer/protagonist write a good story.

Hypothetically, say I had a friend who did not really like Borat, would you consider that person a total sourpuss? Everyone I know saw it in the theater, and everyone just raved and raved about it. These are people whose tastes I respect. Even my parents liked it. I was just very surprised when the dvd ended and I was kind of like "oh."

I had this conversation with a classmate. (former classmate? I am no longer a student. So strange.) Anyway, he was arguing that when telling funny stories you always tell the story in the first person regardless of whether or not it happened to you, and you always claim the story is completely true regardless of how much you are exagerating. And I understand that this is what people do, but I kind of feel like it is cheating humor. There are two levels of funny. There are things that are funny because they are just funny, and then there are things that are funny because the person laughing believes it really happened. I mean this is true for interesting too. Apparently, James Frey first tried to sell his books to publishers as a work of fiction and it was universally rejected. He then decided to call it a memoir and suddenly he was published and on Oprah. Or the fact that Christopher Hitchens was rude to me at a party isn't funny in itself, it is only funny if you believe that a drunken Hitchens told me to move away from the alcohol so he could have more. He actually didn't said move, he said, well, are you going to get up for me? (god, I was pissed. But I was shy and I just moved).

I mean I imagine there are lots of people who might just find the characters inherently funny. But so much of the pleasure i got out of Ali G was the "oh my god, he just asked Boutros Boutros Ghali if Disneyland will ever become part of the UN. That is really funny." But I know this is true. I know he actually asked Ghali these questions. Anyway, when I was watching Borat I felt like it was all pretty set up. I mean I think that Pamela Anderson running away from him and he chasing after her is incredibly funny if Pamela Anderson had no idea what was going on and honestly thought a crazy man was going to force her to marry him. But if this was Pamela Anderson acting, just the concept in itself of some wierd man's obsession with Anderson and her running away fictionalized is kind of lame. Or like the sexist drunken fratboys: funny if he just happened to come across said frat boys and this is what happened. But not funny if he interviewed dozens of different groups of guys and this was just the best interview. I mean some portion of American males get drunk and don't respect women, I know that already, finding a random representative group just was not that funny. Or all the random American people he got to say kind of racist or homophobic things, how many people do you think he interviewed who did no such thing? Who thought his statements about Jews were appalling?

That being said there were some brilliant moments for all the reasons I loved Ali G. The whole singing the national anthem in front of a crowd of people was great. I found the interview with Alan Keyes pretty funny. Actually everything surrounding the gay pride parade. The parade even saved the part at the beginning in which he tried to kiss random New Yorks and they yelled at him. I initially thought that part was really lame, mostly because if a random man followed by a camera crew tried to kiss me on the street, I would not be pleased. But he made up for it with the juxtaposition.

Also, there was Romanian! I have never heard Romanian in the movies before.