Great Quote

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Robert A. Heinlein

Of Bats and Boners

Sex Sells, But Don't Try To Buy It

Today on the bus ride to work I saw one of those jumbo-tron billboards that display a dozen different advertisements. As we passed, two ads flashed in quick succession made my head spin. The first was a warning to johns visiting prostitutes that their pictures will be published on a Minneapolis web site. The second depicts a demure Margaret Cho gazing seductively at the viewer, arms forward and pressed to her breasts to exaggerate her exposed cleavage. Apparently she's going to be doing a show at a nearby casino (in support of another vice).

Don't these billboard people understand irony?

All Right...

...I apologize for that last post. It is pretty goddamn ham-handed. But these days, short of donning black cowls and sporting moustaches, could the bad guys be any more obvious?

Plus, I like the phrase "dirty fucking hippies."

The Dirty Fucking Hippies Were Right

Any song that uses the word "temerity" in it deserves some props. Even if it is more of a spoken-word rant than a song.

The Tyranny of Do-Gooders

Bleak. Hilarious. Kinky. Violent. Atheistic. Flawed. Unsettling. All of these adjectives describe Watchmen, the latest comic book opus to be transferred to the cinema. But this film does not possess a multiplex sensibility; it is deformed, hideous, and brilliant. It is art-house/grind-house superhero-noir holding a mirror to the black heart of humanity. I saw it on Sunday with my teenage children, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

I have read a series of negative reviews that have been accurate enough in their criticisms (this character was superficial or that performance was wooden or some artistic choice was derivative), but I also feel like they have missed the forest for the trees. This film is relentless and uncompromising and doesn't really care what you think.

Rorschach, the film's chief protagonist, is like Frank Booth and Travis Bickle rolled together into superhero form. Jackie Earle Haley's performance as Rorschach is so pure it could shatter glass, and make the audience laugh out loud and shiver in fear simultaneously. It is a testament to the effectiveness of the film that the two most loathsome characters, Rorschach and the Comedian, are unnervingly sympathetic.

Having seen 300, the director's previous work, I went into this film prepared for something flat and hackneyed and overlong. I came out speechless - I thought Watchmen was great. Have a look at it and let me know your thoughts. Unlike the film, I do care. *:-)

Five Dollar Foot Long

Doesn't really need a caption, does it?