Wed, March 30

"Gwyneth didn't have to declare her Apple!"—8:53 PM

Arksie brings up the following story from Yahoo! News: Hilary Swank Fined for Fruit Import, making the point that he traveled down under recently and they tell you ahead of time that you have to declare fruit. Hilary's assertion is that when she arrived in New Zealand she forgot she had an orange and an apple with her. I for one buy it, because five years ago she forgot she had a husband at the Academy Awards – she seems a little flaky in that regard.

Anyway, to me, the more important point is: the fine that she tried to appeal was only $142. With an additional $21 (referred to by the AP only as "costs" – but we can assume these are fees associated with filing the appeal), that comes to a whopping $163. Best Actress of the Year? I think she can afford it. What the hell is she doing writing handwritten letters on behalf of $163? If she needs $163 so bad, she should do like David spade and do some CapitalOne ads. (Or worse, accept a role on 8 Simple Rules.)

Here's my suggestion: seeing-stars.com lists the following as her mailing address.

Hilary Swank
c/o SFM
1122 S. Robertson Blvd., Suite 15
Los Angeles, CA 90036

By my calculations, this site has about six readers, give or take. I think we should each write her a check for $27.16 and mail it to her with a note saying we're sorry those swarthy foreigners gave her a hard time, shouldn't they know she's royalty to us, they should burn in hell, Lord of the Rings sucked anyway. (Damn, now we're down to only five participants. $32.60, everyone!)

1 comment

Trailer Trash—7:14 AM

I was tooling around the Quicktime Trailers site recently and ran across the new one from Michael Bay (who directed a lot of awesome action movies and then did Pearl Harbor – presumably on a personal mission to bring new levels of meaning to the word "infamy").

The Island

How about that! I had no idea he was going to remake Parts: The Clonus Horror, one of my favorite MST3K episodes! Ooh, and it's complete with the wacky standoff: "I'm the real me. Shoot him!" "No! He's the clone! Shoot him!" This is so tired that it's already been lampooned on The Simpsons with Homer and Krusty. Still, it's nice to see Ewan McGregor's twin brother getting some stand-in work.

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Tue, March 29

Let's hear it for robots—10:04 AM

I know I gave the Robots movie a hard time, but when I think of robots in general, I've got nothing but love.

This week I ran out of aluminum foil, because I've been reheating a lot of pizza, and all those little foil squares really add up. (Don't worry, I was easily able to buy more because this isn't Russia.) As I placed the new roll of foil in the drawer, I realized that I still had a tiny bit left from the old one. I did my best to tuck it into the start of the new roll to avoid having two rolls in the drawer, but of course it was a mess. (Luckily, it's just foil, so that's okay.)

As I pitched the old roll and stowed the new roll again, I got to thinking - rather than having one giant heavy roll of foil, maybe I should've split it in two, and had two half-rolls. But I didn't do it, because I realized that it would be even more of a mess trying to roll the foil onto the other spool. Just like trying to rewrap paper towels once they've come unwound – you can do it, but it's lumpy and messy.

Which made me think: how do they do it? How do the Reynolds people, and the Bounty people, and the Charmin people get it so tight and perfect every time? How do the Q-tip people stack them so neatly in that little case when every time I try it looks like a half-finished game of pick up sticks?

The answer to each comes back the same: robots.

2 comments

Mon, March 28

Melinda and Melinda

It probably won't break my top five movies this year, but Melinda and Melinda proves undeniably that Woody Allen is back! (Read more.)

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Fri, March 25

The hazards of perceived value—2:20 PM

Seth Godin, with whom I frequently disagree, is harping on an Internet company called Green Culture for charging online customers more for the same product.

On the short list [Seth's Blog]

Losing Sleep Over Online Bed Purchases [trite pun courtesy of WP]

I think the derision is misdirected here. Green Culture is pretty slimy to offer the same bed under a different name for more money, but that's not the point. This is:

The price of the queen-size model, made by Lifestyle Solutions, ranged from $299 to $449.

But the District couple say they wanted something "a bit nicer." So they bought a $695, custom-ordered bed called Malibu from eco-furniture.com, the Web site of Green Culture.

As the article says later on, both websites use the same photograph to identify the bed: they're identical. If you're going to be the kind of moron who buys into the "perceived value" of an identical bed, thinking it's "nicer" just because it costs an extra $250, then you deserve to pay more. If Green Culture identifies these customers and profits from their stupidity, then good for Green Culture!

Look, I occasionally do it too, find a pricier item because the cheap one seems too good to be true and I don't want to get burned with a shoddy knock-off. It's thinking like this that allows the concept of "brand" to carry so much weight in marketing. But I don't whine about it. I know I'm being a stooge. Let's not forget: the fair price is the price the market will bear, not the price that sounds fair. If you don't believe me, try shopping for real estate in Southern California, for Christ's sake.

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Thu, March 24

The Bloodmobile—1:57 PM

A spare but very peppy Flash animation set to the music of "The Bloodmobile" – a very educational song by They Might Be Giants that I haven't found on any album, but if you were in my car over the last few months, you probably heard it blasting from the iPod.

The Bloodmobile

I haven't looked it up, but presumably the song is from one of the ABC or PBS specials that they provided extra music for. The animation was done by a fan, and it's plenty of fun.

"...And we're all – delievered by the Bloodmobile!"

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Wed, March 23

The Office (U.S.)—10:10 PM

The promos keep pouring in for NBC's import of the BBC comedy hit The Office. (And the online ads! Sheesh!) It begs the question: are they holding any footage to air during the show itself?

One thing these clips have in common: "Entertainment Weekly" went easy on the American version of the show – it doesn't just lack the poignancy of the original, it also lacks the subtlety. Which you'd have to expect: NBC doesn't trust audiences to find their own jokes, especially without a laugh track to guide them. They're going to want to put a nice, healthy beat after every humorous moment, to make it clear as day. And that will kill The Office. The core of the show's success isn't the product they sell, or the arrangement of the desks, or the handheld camera – all of which NBC has mimicked faithfully – it's the style of the humor, played absolutely straight.

I love Steve Carell to death. He's amazing. But he's not playing it straight the way he should be. He's punching the funny lines, he's mugging at the camera, he's too "on." The great thing about the British Office is that the characters were never aware of the camera when they most needed to be, and all too aware of it when they shouldn't have been.

Don't get me wrong: I'm hopeful. I'll be tuning in this time on Thursday with as much anticipation as anyone. I truly hate to see a network rewarded for churning out a copy, but I'd still love for The Office to be good – for Carell's sake, for TV's sake, for our sake. And I understand that it can be different from Ricky Gervais's masterwork and still be excellent in its own way. Hopefully it will be – but I'm not optimistic. It pains me to say it, but this may well go down as one of the worst programming decisions in NBC's history (and keep in mind, that history includes Daddio).

***

Meanwhile, Ron Silver has gone right ahead and spelled out what The West Wing wants its mission statement to be for next season. (And no, it's not: "His father is the DISTRICT ATTORNEY!") I, for one, am on board. I'd gladly reach across the aisle to vote for Arnie Vinick.

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Tue, March 22

9-to-5

Mark Burnett is like a feral cat: you back him into a corner, and he's going to go nuts and lash out. Ulong's repeated failure put him in an uncomfortable position, and now he's upended the whole game to get free! (Read more.)

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I was pleased to see—9:15 AM

I was pleased to see that the flurry of Congressional activity didn't manage to cloud the mind of U.S. District Judge James D. Whittemore – he's refused to order Terri Schiavo's feeding tube back in. It's a difficult situation, and certainly nobody's happy to see her die, but she deserves peace. And it's important to look beyond the emotional component and just look at the actual law – which says the guardian makes his/her best judgment about what the patient would have wanted in the absence of a living will. Not the Pope. Not the president.

Whittemore's decision, paraphrased, was: Listen, we've been over this and over this. Every time, the answer comes back the same. It's time to stop bickering and just accept it.

Well said.

(And I do mean "over this and over this" – and then some: Schiavo timeline via Kung Fu Monkey)

Update: Spectacular insight from Slate on the matter: Activist Legislators

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Mon, March 21

Whose Life is It, Anyway?

Rather than letting poor Terri Schiavo pass away peacefully, Bush and his "culture of life" vigilantes are using her as a poster child for the anti-euthanasia cause – and blurring the line between "natural life" and medical contrivance in the process. (Read more.)

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Sat, March 19

Cran-Babies!—11:21 AM

Every once in a while, a trip to the grocery store yields a delightful, surprising treat. This week, I stumbled upon these new mini-bottles of cranberry juice. Which are just plain perfect! They're good for a hike, they fit in the office fridge, and they're great for when you want some cranberry juice while watching Celebrity Poker Showdown but you don't feel like getting a glass dirty.

Plus, they're cute as a button!

Charmingly, Welch's has gotten in on the same deal, so now I have baby grape juice to go with my baby cranberry juice. I can start a whole baby pantry! And that would be just about the cutest thing ever.

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Thu, March 17

Diversion—10:57 AM

I've hit upon a bold new approach to wandering the blogosphere. (And yes, I hire an Armenian kid to come in on weekends and type words like "blogosphere" into this site because I flatly refuse on account of the Chocaholic Corollary incorporated into the onebee bylaws.)

Anyway, if you're looking for fun new blogs to read (and who among us isn't – you can never have enough), here's what I do: I think up an imaginary website address, and then later I go online to see if it exists. (Remember whatbadgerseat.com?) Yesterday in the car, I couldn't stop saying the word "fiefdom" – so when I got home, I checked out fiefdom.blogspot.com. Lo and behold – Notes From a Luftmensch!

This is a great way to find new voices online, and it really cuts out the legwork of having to scroll through the links sections of sites you already like and figure out which other sites might appeal to mutually shared interests. (And, by the way, legwork.blogspot.com – not as good.) It's akin to Yahoo!'s old random link generator, except now you know at least the URL will be cool.

As it turns out, Notes From a Luftmensch is written by a young philosopher in Boise, which is very cool because that's something I've always wanted to be. (A philosopher, not an Idahoan – not that there's anything wrong with that.) A self-proclaimed luftmensch ("an unusually contemplative person who has no definitive purpose or steady income"), his writing revels in stone-faced solipsism and often appears to be nothing more than a catalogue of his mind and surroundings – which is certainly no criticism: it's about time someone refined the practice of blogging to its true essence. There's a serendipitous synchronicity in the timing of my discovery, since I'm currently reading John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces and Luftmensch reads like the experiment of a cheeky grad student: what would Ignatius J. Reilly's blog be like? (In fact, it could just as easily answer the question: what would onebee be like if I left all my friends behind and moved to Idaho?) The writing is so gleefully self-infatuated that at times I'm almost convinced it's like Hot Abercrombie Chick – a meticulous hoax. This is just the sort of thing that the Stove Vegas blog would've been if we'd done it.

And he still hates the Bush administration as much as I did about 18 months ago. Possibly more! So, since I'm doing my best to cut back on the political stuff for the sake of my sanity, I think I'll just refer all those in need of Bush-based invective over to his site. It will be a very smooth transition: he's every bit as angry as I've been, and even more in love with his Thesaurus (if you can imagine such a thing). You won't find as many four-letter words in his rants, but only because he scornfully eschews words that short. He's even got ratings!

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Tue, March 15

Oy, Robots!

"The New York Times" says it best: Robots is "a reminder that when it comes to innovative animated entertainment for all ages, there is Pixar, there is Japan, and there is everybody else." (Read more.)

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Mon, March 14

The Aristocrats—9:34 AM

Alert reader Brandon passed along this story from the New York Times:

The Greatest Dirty Joke Ever Told

(As always, if you need a free password to access the article, consider borrowing one from bugmenot.)

What starts out as a recount of how tasteless humor shattered the morbid stranglehold of September 11 turns into a nuanced evaluation of "indecency" in our country, and the (repeating) history of attempts to squelch it. He touches on HBO's brilliant Deadwood, Lynne Cheney, the Hays Production Code, and – of course – shitbag mouthpiece Ari Fleischer.

My frenzied reading list has taken me through the Hays years twice in the last month or two (once semi-fictionally, once historically) and each time I think, "He he! Another year or so and we'll be living through Hays Redux."

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Sat, March 12

The New World—10:14 PM

Call it a hunch... but I have a feeling this logo will become important in the near future.

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Fri, March 11

Tim Burton's throw pillow!—11:34 AM

Alert reader NotSpanky (who is actually pretty spanky if you know him) turned me on to the announcement of Tim Burton's garage sale and dared me to go. Never one to back down from such a ridiculous challenge (or from an opportunity to acquire a shot glass with Jeffrey Jones's thumb print!), I enlisted trusty sidekick AC and set off for Azusa.

Fortunately, the crowd was small when we got there (but plenty surly). Before long, we were wandering amidst Tim and Lisa's cast-off VCR equipment, tablecloths, and pricey stilettos. Surprisingly little movie memorabilia – mostly movie furniture. And lots of odds and ends like paint sets and dog toys that you'd expect to find at any garage sale. (And, when I say "surprising" I don't mean I would have expected a bunch of Edward Scissorhands armatures and Boogie Woogie dolls; but the listing made it sound more special than it was.)

A photographer from the "New York Times" was there – I suspect the story they'd tell would be the amount of fans who were attracted, and not the actual merchandise. By the time we left, the line was growing. I ended up with a new piece of luggage (at a massive savings off retail) and a pretty throw pillow, just for fun.

(Sorry no better pictures – photography was prohibited inside, most likely as a way of preventing us from showing the world how dull it was.)

Nothing super exciting, but it felt fun to be a part. It's rare that I go to such lengths to participate in one of these "only in LA" things.

Update: Rummaging for a Piece of Tim Burton [NYT]

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Thu, March 10

Brains vs. Yawn

Hey, the plucky, scrappy team that everyone counted out is routinely besting the stronger, younger team with the blonde locks and firm abs! (Feel free to apply this to the third episode of any Survivor series in the last three years.) (Read more.)

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Wed, March 9

All's well that ends well—11:22 PM

I had a few minutes between the time I finished watching West Wing (Argh! Driver's licenses for illegals! When will they learn?!) and the time I switched off the TiVo, and it was recording Diane Sawyer's interview with supermodel/tsunami survivor Petra Nemcova. Yeah, I set TiVo up to record it – it seemed like a harmless enough thing to record, and it might be interesting. I'm not ashamed at all to say that I had her Swimsuit Issue cover on the top of a stack of magazines on my dresser for months and enjoyed seeing her flirtatious smile every morning as I left for work. It's quite a picture!

There are thousands upon thousands of stories from the tsunami, and of course hers is no more nor less important than any one of them. But I'm not exactly shocked that hers is the one that merits an hour of prime time, so I'm going to find a way to live with it. She's quite a cutie. I only watched about two minutes so far, but she had adorable things to say about how she found the will to survive while she was clinging, battered and exsanguinating, to the side of a tree for most of a day. I'm proud of her.

And hey, maybe some good can come of this – maybe now little girls will dream of growing up to be supermodels!

1 comment

Trailer: Hitch—9:53 AM

It's not like this happened just today or anything, but there's a new trailer out for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I was going to avoid it, because it'll probably be my favorite movie this year, and I like to keep the surprises. (I know the books very well, but the filmmaking decisions like art direction, costumes, and monster designs could still be surprising.) But curiosity got the better of me and I took a chance. Good thing, too. It's a great trailer, and it takes the opportunity to mock movie trailers while in fact being one – sort of like the genius trailer for Comedian.

From the look of things, they're putting elements from all the books (at least the original trilogy) in there somewhere. I don't know if this means it'll be a four hour movie, but I hope so. This is one I'll be very happy to stay in the theatre for. Like The Incredibles, the casting is inspired – which means risky. I like all the actors (with the exception of Zooey Deschanel whom, of course, I'm in love with), but I'd never have pictured Mos Def for Ford Prefect. I trust him, though; I can't wait to see how it turns out!

Also new, a trailer for Fantastic Four, which certainly makes it look fun. Gleefully, I had to move my second-favorite movie of this year, Mr. & Mrs. Smith to third in order to accommodate Shopgirl, which makes Fantastic Four, fittingly, fourth.

I'm having quite a time pre-ranking my favorite movies of 2005. Maybe we need a pre-tournament (of Movies) – or, better yet, an Oscar-pool style voting system where we rank all the upcoming releases now, then rank them again at the end of the year and see how we did.

Damn it. We're all so tired of the stupid "Trailer Park" pun, I thought it would be cute to use something different and, by abbreviating "Hitchhiker's", something with context. But it's hard to tell I'm not referring to the actual movie called Hitch – yet another reason to hate Hitch and all that it stands for.

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Tue, March 8

Reality TV Internal Monologue Dept.—11:21 PM

Overheard inside the brains of Amazing Race contestants on this evening's episode:

Amber (reading clue card): "You have $420 for this leg of the race."

Amber (to herself): You mean "one million four hundred twenty dollars!" Wheee!

***

Lynn (or Alex): That's okay, 'cause we're good at bringing up the rear!

Alex (or Lynn) (to himself): NOOOO!!!!!

0 comments

Carter Lust—7:50 PM

TiVo and I finally had a chance to start in on the new episodes of the WB's soft-core porn extravaganza, Smallville, that began in January. (I've been devoting my time to other shows lately.) It features the return of guest star Sarah Carter, who popped up on Boston Legal recently as the World's Cutest Lesbian (or, as James Spader would pronounce it, Lllllllllesbian). She's just a doll! It's interesting that she can seem like such a grown-up in that role, and still portray a google-eyed teenager so effectively in Smallville – Acting! She's quite a joy to watch.

0 comments

Look out!—7:26 PM

The publishers of "Entertainment Weekly" have dumped an inaugural copy of their new movie magazine, "Look", in my mailbox. When I heard this was coming, I was apprehensive, because doesn't "EW" already cover movies? Are they going to stop? Am I going to have to subscribe to both? I already get "Premiere" – how many movie magazines do I need?

Well, the math just got more complicated – "Look" is pretty amazing. It isn't perfect (there's a full-page chart very reminiscent of the Shaw Report), but it's damn close. It has a real cineaste feel to it, without being so obsessive that I feel guilty for not being able to keep up. It has a rakish design – owing heavily to Erik Spiekermann – which is consistent but versatile, giving ample room to the film image but maintaining a "smart," non-frivolous feel (assisted by the tabloid-style page dimensions and tightly-spaced serifed body font). It takes a variety of approaches to discussing and studying films (and film), including one delightful nugget cribbed from "mental_floss": Smart Things to Say. There are also intelligent movie comparisons and recommendations ("if you liked this, try this") which include not just a list of titles, but reasons why. Plus – indispensable for a DVD early adopter – the "Upgrade or Not?" section for new special-edition releases of films already out on DVD.

There are profiles and updates from all areas of the film industry – producing, directing, cinematography, screenwriting – and the all-important "back page" section is deftly occupied by "Look Back" (har!): a stroll down memory lane devoted to a large and scrumptious behind the scenes shot (this time, Hitchcock on the set of The Birds) and a tight, enjoyable blurb (Tippi Hedren quote). Best yet, it's the first issue, so no insipid Letters section, filled with bubbling adulation like, "Thanks so much for putting a picture of Ben Affleck on your magazine front-part!" (Paraphrasing Paul F. Tompkins, of course.)

It doesn't hurt that there's a two-page spread heralding the upcoming release of The Incredibles on DVD – discussing the movie, the extras, the director, the composer, and rating it ten out of a possible ten. I'm off to buy me some Les Baxter records!

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Fri, March 4

Paul Graham: What You Can't Say

"I think that 'judgmental' is one of the labels that gets used in our time to prevent discussion of ideas, and that our attempts to be 'non-judgmental' will seem to future eras one of the most comical things about us." (Read more.)

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Wed, March 2

Delicate—8:42 PM

I remember, going to high school in the '90s, every single senior class "memories" video was set to the 10,000 Maniacs song "These Are Days." And I'm starting to get the same feeling when I hear "Delicate" by Damien Rice.

It started a couple of weeks ago, when I was enjoying a TiVo-based marathon of back to back Huff episodes. Episode 6 ("Is She Dead!") ended with the gentle, mournful strains of "Delicate" playing over slow-motion footage of the Huffstodt family commiserating after a scary incident. I liked it instantly. It fit the material nicely, and it sounded a lot like that Rufus Wainwright song that everyone was in such a fuss about, except really, really good.

Then, last week, Lost "...In Translation" ended with the same song – playing on Hurley's Discman. "Ha, cool," I thought, "but I was on board way earlier, back when Huff played it." Nope, turns out I wasn't.

I just finished watching "Crossings" from Season Three of Alias, and it also features "Delicate" over slow-motion commiserating! Damn! It's the new "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)"!

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