Tue, June 27

Ken Jennings and Hatelove—7:07 PM

I really can't stand Eminem. He's arrogant, stupid, annoying, and uninteresting. So, when his song "Lose Yourself" was nominated as the Best Original Song for the Academy Awards a few years back, it pained me. Not because it was an undeserved nomination – the song was better than most that year, in or out of the movies – but precisely because of how well deserved it was.

It was my most profound experience to date with hatelove. The rare and extreme cognitive dissonance phenomenon of grudgingly adoring something that you know you're supposed to hate, so much so that you hate yourself for such a betrayal. It would be like if I had a young daughter and Julianne Moore saved her life one day. ("I'm so grateful, it tears me up inside how I can't bring myself to punch you in the face the way I've always fantasized.")

So, today some random netizen linked me to the weblog of Jeopardy! superstar Ken Jennings, a man I absolutely detested during his run on the show. I didn't really care about his answers, I just hated his goofy false modesty and his dumb sense of humor. Assuming he's the actual author of his own blog, he's either gone to sense of humor boot camp, or he was just very, very different on TV. (Maybe he was nervous, or maybe he was acting the way he thought Alex would want him to.)

I've only skimmed through a handful of his entries so far, but already he ranks alongside Josh Friedman, Scott Adams, and John Rogers as my favorite bloggers to read. (Leaving aside my friends, of course, who are the best bloggers ever!)

So it's hatelove on a heretofore unmatched scale. This is like Bil Keane curing cancer. I am honestly surprised that my head hasn't exploded. Of course, the silver lining is a warm, funny, and surprisingly sarcastic new blog to read.

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Up and Away—4:02 PM

The "New Yorker" has re-published Pauline Kael's original review of Richard Donner's Superman back in 1978, and it's not pretty.

I happen to agree with Kael for the most part (although Joe and I disagree with her about the Hackman/Beatty comic scenes). It's easy to understand why Superman was a pivotal film, and why people like Bryan Singer really look up to it. But those reasons are a few set pieces, and the brilliant character work of Christopher Reeve. Taken as a whole, the movie is fraught with problems.

(But I've already been over all that. I was pleased to see a recent interview with Singer in which he, too, expressed shame over that whole world-spinning-backwards thing.)

What's really interesting about Kael's review is how presciently she surveyed the superhero movie landscape. Overall, I've generally felt that she was a bitterly dismissive critic, but she shares some good ideas here. (Arguably, she tosses out more alternative story beats than she really should – after all, you review the film they made, not the film they should have made.) As she laments the bland heroics of the Superman story, she accurately predicts the darker, brooding superheroes of Burton's Batman and Raimi's Spider-Man – vigilantes despised by the very public they feel honor-bound to protect. She even calls for the emotional shift that Bryan Singer has infused into the story: Superman's withdrawal from a society that doesn't understand him.

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Sun, June 25

Shyamalan: A Ding-Dong—11:06 AM

Andy's ripping into acclaimed director and self-proclaimed über-genius M. Night Shyamalan over at Words Are Fun. Night's gone goony with his own self-satisfaction and now he's got a book coming out about how he's a visionary genius and everyone else eats poop.

I tossed in my two cents, which are reprinted here (by my own permission) in order to convince you to read his enjoyable rant and add your own thoughts.

See, I've always liked him more than you do, but I still agree with everything you've said here.

Wide Awake - really enjoyed it, before I even knew who Shyamalan was
The Sixth Sense - excellent
Unbreakable - enjoyable, but not entirely my kind of film
Signs - utterly terrifying, very effective
The Village - interesting, but very very gay twist ending
That Fucking American Express Ad - now he's dead to me

Definitely believes his own hype too much, which is a shame. We all saw where he came from: right outta nowhere with a handful of homemade Super 8 stories. He's a self-made artist with a knack for storytelling. Could've been the next Spielberg. But instead of letting great movies be the goal, and fame and critical praise be the means that helped him achieve it, he's let the fame be the goal and cultivated a myth of himself ever since. Maybe some people could do that full-time and still have enough creative energy to make great movies, but he's showing that he's not among them.

When I saw the trailer for "Lady in the Water," I thought: this looks weird, and oddly fable-y, but Giamatti rarely disappoints, and then the title faded up at the end: "M. Night Shyamalan's The Lady in the Water." And I thought: awwww, HELL no! It's a shame he didn't try making a normal movie. (Narf? Tartutic?) People would've enjoyed that. But instead he's determined to keep proving how outre he can be.

And the stupid thing is, someone as bright as Shyamalan undeniably is should understand that artists such as himself are going to be sensitive to criticism and are going to feel attacked. So he should know to cool down rather than impulsively ripping a preproduction out by its roots, hauling it down the street to Warners, and then writing a scathing book about it. He's going to want to work with some of these people again, and now he's poisoned the water over a tantrum that he now admits was unjustified. What a fool.

But, remember, please... Don't fuck the sea nymph.

None of you are allowed to be surprised in 12 years when girls are flitting around the beach with names like Narf and Tartutic. Those make even Channing sound good.

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30 Rock—10:40 AM

NBC has an extended preview on its video page of Tina Fey's new comedy 30 Rock. This is the first footage I've seen from the show – really the first anything I've seen, other than brief blurbs and comparisons to Sorkin's similar fall show with the constantly expanding title.

As reluctant as I am to embrace any new network programming (having been burned so very many times before), there are quite a few fall shows I'm looking forward to this year. And, based on this footage, 30 Rock has a good chance to top that list. Really funny moments, and – more importantly – clever and different moments. It doesn't do the same jokes as other comedies on TV, and it doesn't repeat its own jokes either. (Except for running gags; we all know that's not the same thing.) This is the sort of thing I was clumsily attempting to discuss in my State of TV Comedy column a while back.

I think 30 Rock will be a phenomenal new show for the fall. Unless – unless – the editing is bad. That's the only thing you can't preview in these clips, and we've all seen it torpedo otherwise fresh and innovative comedy before. So, I really hope that won't happen to an otherwise outstanding show with a great cast. (Alec Baldwin... Yum.)

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Thu, June 22

Slow News Equinox—5:37 PM

The local paper seems to publish pictures of girls at the beach on its front page at least three times a week. (Not that I am complaining.) Today it was in recognition of the first official day of summer, but usually the premise is far more flimsy. The great thing is, on days when it's too hot to go to the beach, this is a real time-saver – they bring the only benefit right to me!

That's the actual caption of the photo. I just changed the last names because I don't need their moms (or Ted Sundquist) Googling them and sending me angry letters. I get enough angry mail from my own mom about stuff like this.

A number of thoughts occur to me when looking at this photo:

1. At first glance, it seems a shame that Connor's photograph would be the more fun one to look at, but then you realize that this one is at least 50% better. Well played, Florida Times-Union.

2. 12-year-old girls did not look like this when I was 12. There's seriously something to this theory about all the rBGH in our dairy products. (Not that I am complaining.) I no longer feel guilty for having a crush on Michelle Trachtenberg when she was 16 – this is entrapment! Another year or two and I'm just going to have to chain myself to a radiator.

3. How cushy is that photo assignment, by the way? "Hang out at the beach all day and take pictures of hot chicks. Oh, and here's a paycheck."

4. What in the fire-spewing fuck was going on with kids' names in the '90s? I mean, it's universally accepted that the whole kid-naming thing has gone right off the deep end, but seriously – how often do you have a group of three kids and Connor is the most normal one? (Which I honestly thought was a boy's name, too...)

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How Book Design Works—10:02 AM

Anderson Cooper was on The Daily Show last night to promote his new book, Dispatches from the Edge. (The edge of what? TV news? It's a sad state when the part of journalism with the actual stories and real interviews is referred to as the fringe.)

I've never been much a fan of Coop, perhaps because he seemed like a smug know-it-all on Channel One when I was in high school – although if that hadn't done it, The Mole would have. He seems to have modeled himself in the Stone Phillips "gravitas makes it so" fashion, which I find irritating. He was funny in those CNN promo spots a year or so ago, but he has a laugh like a weasel in a clothes dryer, which hampers his appearances on Stewart or Colbert.

I admit, he's doing better journalism than anyone else at CNN (or cable news in general), but that's not a high bar. The problem is, for every Katrina rant, there's a two-hour exclusive with Angelina Jolie. (Don't get me wrong; I love her, but let Matt Lauer handle the celebrity gabfests. He wouldn't know real news if it bit him in his spiky head.) Coop has done a good job building a brand for himself – one which is within CNN but also separate from it. He doesn't want to muddy that up with puff pieces.

This is important because CNN can't suddenly become its old self again (serious analysis, minimal punditry, hard-hitting news) – if it did, its viewers and interview subjects would bail over to FNC or MSNBC. It's too big a ship to steer. But Coop can infuse research, facts, and tough questions into his show because he's becoming well enough known that he can't be ignored. The key is to focus on maintaining that brand; if he dilutes it, he diminishes his strength and autonomy, and without them he has no hope of saving CNN from the inside.

Anyway, the cover of his new book is stupid.

1 comment

Wed, June 21

iDon't fuckingBelieveIt

Some hateful, creepy dipshits are trying to persuade you that listening to an iPod makes you a conformist sheep – and they're doing it to sell you an MP3 player. (Read more.)

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Leia Weigh—12:08 AM

Posterwire recently did a piece on the redesigned DVD cover art for the new Star Wars re-release DVDs. As a result, I was reminded how unbelievably hot Carrie Fisher was in that space-slave outfit we all like to fantasize about.

Yowza.

Now, compare that to Carrie Fisher today. How is this even possible? For the first time ever, I experienced a moment of not being jealous of hot girls for all the power they have. I once remarked to a friend that if I were a hot girl in her 20s, I could rule the world. And he said, wisely, "Yes, but that power fades." Boy howdy, it does.

5 comments

Thu, June 8

They sing without flunjers, capdabblers, and smendlers!—11:29 AM

I'm reading this ridiculously stupid book that my mom got me for Xmas, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil. (It's okay; it's the thought – and the misclick on my Amazon wish list – that counts.)

The other day, I ran across a link to an interview with the author, George Saunders. I read it (as much as I could stomach), in case it might shed some light on what the hell he's trying to do in his book. Instead, it just confirmed my worst fears – not only is the book incredibly boring, it's also a failed allegory of the Bush administration. Be an obnoxious lefty if you want (I am), but don't get all artsy and "meta" about it. It really makes me want to punch people in the teeth. (Or worse, vote Republican.)

Anyway, Saunders mentions a book called Dead Souls that he enjoys, so I looked it up on Amazon to see what it's about, hoping to salvage something interesting out of the experience.

Dead Souls sounds kind of freaky. Not sure if I'll be adding it to my reading list any time soon, but the Amazon review did yield this enjoyable quote from the book: "However stupid a fool's words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man."

(Take your pick: Santorum, Bush, O'Reilly.)

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Thu, June 1

United We Suck

Profits are down at the airline companies. Using their services, it's pretty easy to imagine why. Nobody screws up more often, or treats customers worse. Oddly, their solution to their own flagging sales seems to be further alienation of their travelers. (Read more.)

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