SATURDAY NIGHT PICTURE SHOW

Warner Brother's CONSTANTINE had all the ingredients that make for entertaining cinema, all but the most essential - John Constantine. Recently, the words “based on” became a warning when something is nothing like it's source material.

I’m continually bewildered by Hollywood, spending large amounts buying these concepts worthy of mass appeal, only to change them later. And the excuse is always the same; "certain concepts just wouldn't translate well from book to film". While I can accept it when it comes to the X-Men and yellow tights, I don’t see what’s so unbelievable about a blonde haired magician?

But hair color doesn't make a character, and neither does their profession or lack of one as the case may be for DC's Hellblazer, so I entered the theater totally ready to accept the WB's new interpretation. But Keanu didn't even come close. Sure, there were some dark one-liners that vibe well, but they came and went fast and too far between. Keanu was so stiff, I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him furiously to loosen up. The movie was filled with moments where you could see the actor only moving enough to hit his mark, and I could almost see the flash from a camera shooting movie stills.

The rest of the production danced around interesting concepts brought to us in a PC manner that was careful not to offend and unworthy of an R rating that promised more. The set and conceptual designs would have been impressive, if it was television, but nothing worthy of cinema, and I could only imagine how much more imaginative it would have been if Tarsem Singh (director of THE CELL) were still attached to the project. Using Los Angeles as hell and heaven was both simple and redundant. The demons were so non-threatening; Constantine came off more like a bully than warrior. And corny inventions like the “Holy shotgun” and blessed brass knuckles destroyed your believability just when you were getting into the story.

The most inconsistent moments were when the movie tried to fulfill it's promise to the comic fans by tossing out a lines or idea from the book, but this only hurts because the story is so far off track it makes no sense. During the film's climax, we're gifted by the appearance of Lucifer, played by Deno Velvet himself, Peter Storemare. Lucifer queries if John's recent attempt at heroism is a con, but after two hours, we've seen nothing in Keanu's character to warrant the question. More painful, was the choice of Lucifer's appearance that made this strong character and actor nothing more than a sweaty perv in a clean suit.

Rachel Weisz was good, but nothing much was required for her character, just an obvious plot tool to facilitated the climax and resolution. As was Papa Midnight, who provided an excuse for special effects that were lackluster. Shia LaBeouf’s Chas had some promise that amounted to cannon fodder by the film’s climax. And I have no idea why Pruitt Taylor Vince’s priest character was even in the movie, except for some cheap attempt at blasphemy.

I can’t say anything bad about Francis Lawrence’s direction, but there’s nothing memorable about it either. It lacked any style or uniqueness we’ve come to expect from music video graduates like David Fincher.

CONSTANTINE is enjoyable, but only because it’s genre is empty of competition right now, unless you like Harry Potter, and those aren’t nearly hardcore enough. Like most genre films lately, the word “potential” screams at you from beginning to end. I couldn’t help imagining what I would have done differently, and even laughed out loud at the thought of John Constantine coming to Los Angeles, trying to buy a box of fags (cigarettes) in a Korean Liquor store where even American English is absent.

Overall, the only thing I took from the movie were notes on how NOT to write a supernatural thriller, especially if I actually want to scare and mystify my audience.

JPG.

THINKING WITH TWO HEADS

I'm so fed up with my hospital job and sheer disappointment, being forced to make a living doing anything other than my calling, that I've thrown myself into the porno pool, hoping to attract sharks who'll chew me up and spit me out.

I don't care, as long as I get the fuck outta here and somewhere I can write full-time.

I've been pushing hard this past week, inquiring with every porn magazine, looking for a writing position or any position I can find. I got a bite from one publisher who asked for a writing sample, a porno review.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to actually watch a porno, not masturbate, and then critic it objectively?

Being "Charlie Brown", it was my luck that the movie I chose was horrible and I found myself trying to decide if I should fake a positive review or be honest and justifiably trash the movie. I picked up a copy of the magazine to get a feel for their style and see how they handle negative criticism. But I couldn't find one, not all of the reviews were good, but they all had some positive spin.

So what did I do?

I figured I'd be honest because I don't know how to write any other way. I also decided if adult films want mainstream acceptance from Hollywood, they have to live up to those standards.

This was the result...

JINX

Wicked Pictures, D: FJ Lincoln, Jenna Jameson, Nico Treasures, Caressa Savage, Julie Rage, Roxanne Hall, Jacklyn Lick, Colt Steele, John Decker, Alex Sanders and Special Appearance by Big T (Non-Sex Role), 86 Mins.

Extras: Audio Bios (limited), Behind the Scenes Stills, Wicked Casino (DVD-Rom game), Wicked Web Hyperlink, Motion Menus, Photo Gallery, AVN Award Winners and Nominations (list), Company Profile and Trailers.

Maybe it’s a coincidence that two days before writing this review, I saw an E! True Hollywood Story on Jenna Jameson and the movie I’d pick at random would be the worst in her filmography.

Jinx suffers on several levels, poor sound quality, jagged editing, bad acting with no characterization, no attempt at a story, and the worst crime – bad sex choreography. The only saving grace is snippets from each sex scene that if strung together, make a decent sexual interlude.

The movie opens with Jenna, a hard working prostitute (the only way I know she’s a prostitute is from the box cover) who drops into a local bar. She invites her co-star, Colt Steele, to a game of billiards and we’re bored with moving “snap shots” until John Decker shows up as “The Pimp” (the only actor with even a generic name) who tries pulling Jenna away, resulting in a muted punch across the face from Steele who takes Jenna home with him.

John Decker and Roxanne Hall give us the first sex scene that begins well. Hall sucks dick better than Jenna, but the scene falls from there. From oral, they go straight to anal and end with vaginal. Reversing the usual sex format may seem experimental and new, but makes the overall scene anticlimactic, leaving Roxanne way too calm after having her ass plowed. The energy level plummets and the audience go limp.

The rest of the “film” is a mishmash of characters that lack the charm of being cliché or stereotypical. Colt’s character decides to play poker with friends instead of bedding a naked Jenna, but she rebounds into a lesbian scene with Caressa Savage who appears from nowhere. Usually a high point in her films, Jenna’s performance is equal to an accessory whose only purpose is providing motor function to the horse hung dildo, and Caressa’s sex screams are so overdone you hit the mute button.

After Caressa, our happy hooker jumps into a threesome with Nico Treasures and Alex Sanders, the two saving graces in the entire production. Alex Sanders never fails to impress, while Nico Treasures plays a better “hot blonde” than Jenna. You’re actually moved by their performance of a husband and wife more concerned about the other’s enjoyment than their own, creating a scene that is believable on two levels – characterization and Jenna’s arousal.

But even this suffers at the editor’s hands because it’s interrupted early by foreshadowing the next scene with Julie Rage. And Jenna’s upstaged again, as Julie pulls double duty portraying masculine and feminine roles with Colt who’s deadpan acting carries over into his sexual performance. If the actor spent as much energy in his performances as he does flipping his hair, he could be someone of note.

Not even the ending scene between Decker and Jenna can save this movie that ends on a total downer, with Jenna forced to tease customers and fuck her pimp in the same public bar where he was humiliated. You expect our hero to come rushing in to save his damsel, but not likely. He’s too busy flipping his hair and looking unemotional with Jacklyn Lick who’d get more interaction from a statue. Thank goodness for Decker, who comes through in the clinch, dumping his “hard ass pimp” persona for his nice guy looks and pussy eating chops that make Jenna squirm.

Despite all this, and sex scenes so dry they look painful, Jinx does get you off more than once. Just keep the remote handy for fast forwarding.

Marketing: Jenna Jameson’s on the box, but Nico Treasure, Alex Sanders, Julie Rage and John Decker are the stars that make this a jerk-off fest.

_________

Porn is one of those weird topics with no straight answers for or against it. Looking at Jenna Jameson's True Hollywood story on Tuesday, I found myself bouncing between liking, disliking, and just feeling sorry for her.

On one hand you have to admire everything she's done in business, she's a millionaire and has done what many others have failed at, crossing back and forth from porn to mainstream without giving up her day job. Tracy Lords couldn't do it, not without pissing all over the industry that made her famous and her biggest payday to date was a bit part in Blade.

But you can't turn away from what Jenna represents, she's a teen "runaway" who abandoned her dreams of legitimate stardom to make easy money on her back. She freely admitted to giving up her quest to be a Vegas showgirl because it was too much work, but being a stripper landed her $2K a night for doing nothing. Her father allowed her, a teenager, to leave home and live with a man in his twenties, strip at 17, and then left her alone in Vegas while he moved to California (yeah, he's father of the year material - NOT). She got hooked on speed (I never knew you could snort it), went back to her father who cleaned her up, only to let her go back into the adult biz, doing nude pictorials and moving in with Nikki Tyler (who was against Jenna getting into porn at such a young age – integrity comes from unexpected places).

I'm watching this and feeling sad that Jenna’s gone through so much, only amounting to a living sex doll when she could have been much more. And then, I'm pissed at her too, because she knows her past, knows the roads she's travels are dark and dangerous, but still holds herself up as the symbol of feminine power and control in an industry that is and will always be controlled by men (it’s entire reason for being is visualizing male sex fantasies and the women who dominate it do so by embracing masculine qualities in front and behind the cameras).

I have much more respect for actresses like Janine (who just did her first boy/girl movie), who admit what they do is not the best way to make a living and tries to get out, but can't. The money, the power, it's too enticing. And who can blame them, if I wasn't married, I'd be at Bally's pumping up to star in the next Analbolic DVD.

But Jenna, who has the potential to really be different, kowtows to the adult industries propaganda machine, repeating the same rhetoric about how there's nothing wrong with what they do. And there isn't really, not from a moral standpoint...

Sex is whatever you make it. It can be hot and sweaty or slow and romantic. Any married couple will tell you there are times when they want to make love, and others when they just want to fuck. That pornography focuses on only one aspect 90% of the time doesn't make it wrong. It's more honest than Hollywood's stupefying us to believing the opposite, that it's some "holier than thou" romantic act. The most romantic sex my wife and I ever had was more like a Seymore Butts compilation than some Anthony Minghella directed love scene (and it gave us two kids).

So I moved from feeling sorry to disliking her (Jenna), not just because she's part of the reason so many girls are trading college diplomas for HIV test certificates and flooding the industry with the lack luster starlets, but mostly because she's the nemesisof any father trying to keep his daughter off the pole.

And I'm just about to announce these "thought bytes" to my wife when I'm hit with a dose of reality - she's fucking gorgeous, rich, and I'm jealous of her and every man that gets to fuck her.

That shut me up.

There you have the fine line, everything about porn being a symptom of our own depravity is true, but you can't deny "the beautiful ones" are living a better life than the rest of us. They party, they fuck, and they make millions before dying.

And some of them die young, at their own hands or something/someone else's, but so do rock stars, actors, directors, and anyone else who hand rapes the cock of life. Leaving the rest of us wallowing in their shadows, trashing them in public, but lusting for them at 3am when cyber sex doesn't deliver the goods.

Still, it doesn't change the fact that JINX was a crappy movie...

And I need to buy better porn.

JPG.

BLEEDING HEART

It’s Valentine’s Day and I would be remiss if I didn’t comment on my one and only on this, the “holiest” of female holidays.

The coolest thing about being in a relationship as long as I have (eleven and a half years) is, you can say and do anything, no matter how stupid, and still be loved and accepted.

Like yesterday, my wife and I were speaking about Korea’s announcement that they have nuclear weapons. And I went on a laughable “tirade” about liquor storeowners with nukes. My wife, being cool and open about her ethnicity, joined in on the fun and I mentioned to her how there’s only one country I’m afraid of when it comes to war and that’s Japan.

Sure, we demilitarized them at the end of WW2, but don’t be naive to think that in some dark bunker there’s not a military force in wait. I told her my ridiculous theory that the shows we call Power Rangers are actually covert Japanese military recruitment propaganda like our Army and Navy commercials.

I went on for a good twenty minutes about a time in a possible future where Japan and America go head to head on a battlefield and to our surprise the Japanese ranks are full of men and women in Technicolor uniforms with exploding rainbow smoke and giant metallic box-cut animals. Their fighter jets turn into robots and we’re blasted to hell by some mega-cannon branded with a Sony label.

“Screw Bin Laden, I’m afraid of getting my ass kicked by the Yellow Ranger (not the second season black chick replacement, but he original from City of Angels)!”

Yeah, pretty stupid. But I can say something that ignorant and still have my wife’s respect. She still thinks I’m funny, no matter how many “clunkers” I lay on her. She still thinks I’m intelligent, no matter how many dumb ass remarks I make or things I do. She loves me no matter what…

And that love gives me strength and confidence enough to look at other women.

That’s the irony of relationships; finding Mr. or Mrs. Right gives you the boost in your esteem to approach other people. Without them, you’d be a loser, but with them, you feel confident enough to attract someone else, someone better.

That’s when you begin feeling trapped and want to break free from your commitment. It never dawns on you, that without that someone in your life, you’d just revert back to who you were before. This is especially true for men. The clothes we wear, she bought them. The cars we drive, a woman pushed us to get because we were more than happy taking the bus. Our homes, a women cleans and manages (maids count too) or we’d still live with our mothers. Our jobs, lets be real, you can do a lot on minimum wage McDonald’s money if you don’t have a chick in your life.

So what do you do?

Nothing, but be happy for what and who you have because it could be worse.

On Valentine’s Day I remember just how pathetic I am without my wife. How, before she met me, I was living with my mother and telemarketing for printer ribbons in Hollywood. I spent my days daydreaming about Mad About You type romances and watching porn at night.

She is the most attractive quality I have.

And the biggest compliment I could give her, being a writer, is my inability to compare or summarize my feelings for her, whether it’s love, admiration or gratitude for just being with me when she could be with someone who’d provide her a better life than I ever could.

I really don’t deserve her. But I got her, and you better believe I’m not letting her go…

Because it's not often you find an Asian chick with big boobs :)

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

JPG.

DEAD END JOB

I'm a constant victim of the “grass is always greener" syndrome. I always find myself in a position where I'm missing something I took for granted.

When I was in high school, I longed for the excitement of college life. But when I got there, it was nothing but the same old shit from high school. Same classes, same books and lessons being hammered into my hard head. I took a script writing class that moved so slow I read the entire text book one weekend and quit the class the following Monday. Then I took a UCLA extension course in comic writing, but the lessons were so elementary, things I'd already learned through trial and error, that I got nothing out of it.

When I made the decision to quit college and work nine to five, I remember the conversation I had with one of my friends about how I felt like life was passing me by being in school. I wanted to be out in the work force, doing something every day. Then I got there and wished I were back in school.

At my hospital, I was originally stationed in the outpatient clinic that was so stressful I almost had nervous breakdowns on three different occasions and came too close to cursing at the doctors when they became too demanding. I thought it was a blessing when I was promoted to clinical research, the learned they were eliminating my job and need to place me somewhere else or fire me. Now part of me wishes they had, or that I was back in the clinic where things moved at a blistering pace and my responsibilities were finite and ended at five o'clock.

Don't get me wrong because I do I have things to do in my current position. I just don't want to do them.

Sometimes you can stand in the eye of a tornado and feel like you're standing still. I have all these things going on, but still feel like I have nothing. Mostly because none of it is what I really want to be doing. I come into work five days a week, when I'd rather be at home writing, working on a novel or screenplay. I only have a job so I can get paid every two-weeks and while you'd think that would be motivation enough, it's not.

I have a book in production and it's coming along nicely, there's a lot that needs to get done, but I can't do it because I'm stuck here during working hours. By the time I get home, it's too late to do anything. So I try to balance hospital work with personal business and find myself stalling with comic book stuff so I can avoid hospital business. One gives me this incredible feeling of fulfillment, while the other is boring as hell.

It's not like I hate working, I just hate doing the work I have to so I can support my family. If I had to work, I'd rather it is at Tower Records, at least subculture zealots and music would surround me. Or a bookstore, where I could talk to customers about the latest bestsellers and why they’re great or full of hype. Anywhere, but stuck in a hospital where we're gearing up for the latest research audit and I'm forced to review patient charts for the next two-weeks.

And even though my comic is getting done, my artists are all outside the country, being handled by an agency. My only contact is thru emails where I get updated bit by bit on the book's progress. I'm not complaining, the company handling things are great and have great people. But it's not like seeing everything unfold in front of you and actually getting involved.

Now that I'm closer to my goals than ever, I'm looking back on my past years when friends and I would meet every Saturday to discuss our studio, Danse Macabre, and our plans to self-publish our comics. That's all it was, talk. We never really went anywhere or did anything and in hindsight we've all accomplished more apart than we ever did together. But I miss it, the comradeship, the laughter, knowing we’d get together that weekend and plan for the future.

I guess I just feel...alone. Here in my cubicle, day after day, in silence, surrounded by people who seldom share my interests. For them, nothing is more interesting than medical science. But for me, the only interesting thing about it is how I can spin a story out of it.

Sometimes I wonder why I even want to get in this business of being a writer. Used to be, there was nothing else I was suited for and then I wanted the fame and fortune that could come with a successful book.

Now, I just want to get out of here, the nine to five grind. I want to wake up each day, seven days a week, and sit at a computer typing away on an article, short story, or script. I want the stress of business calls with artists and publishers or the bind of meeting a deadline that's only two hours away.

This hospital shit is killing me.

I feel like my book, or even this blog, will open doors for me I never thought attainable. Before doing Speaking In Tongues, I never thought I had the balls to be a columnist. And while I wouldn't shit on the accomplishments of journalist by implying that this even compares, writing these posts and actually receiving positive remarks from people who've stopped by has made me more confident in my abilities, that I could do a column, that I do have something to say and views worth somebody's time to read.

And that makes it all the harder to work here, nine to five, Monday through Friday, doing hospital work.

The only downside to having a family is being here, because I have to be for them to have a life worth living. If not for them, I'd be a bachelor, living in a single and working part-time to pay my $500 monthly rent while eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal every day. But I'd love it. Hell, I just love thinking about it...

Sitting at a crappy old desk, smoking to my malfunctioning heart's content, slamming down on the keyboard to some piece of shit computer while the dvd commentary from Michael Manns' HEAT plays in the background. Only stopping to flirt with fat chicks online, read comics or pop a hundred bills for a massage from some big titted forty something latina "masseuse" that'll end with a her attempts at a hand job, but I'll have to take over because ONLY I know how to jerk myself off properly. I'd get high on Fridays and drunk on Mondays, drinking to all the poor souls who're exactly where I am now. And if I'm lucky, I'll have a girlfriend, probably my wife (because how she found me isn't too far off from this description), and she'll crash at my place whenever she's tired of hearing her Korean mother yell in her ears or try to set her up with some fifty year old dentist from West Covina. We'll fuck and sleep all day and I'll fall asleep with her nipple in my mouth. Those kind of peaceful slumbers only babies have until the television becomes God and sleep is an ignored luxury.

But I can't live that life. I have kids and responsibilities that will never go away, because as sure as I fuck up, so will my children. And I'll get a call from one or both of them forty years from now asking for something.

The hardest part about this whole facade is I have to act like to DO care about my job, because if they (my boss) learn the truth, I'd get canned. But a part of me doesn't care if they find out and fire me. I think a part of me is hoping they will fire my ass, and then I can claim unemployment, have kids and collect on welfare while I work on my novel and the rest of you pay my living expenses. But that won't work because I'm an elitist snob and being on Section Eight housing would embarrass me to no end.

All I can do is dream and keep working, playing "beat the clock" with my employers and hoping my writing career takes off before I get my ass kicked out the door.

Wish me luck.

JPG.

THOUGHT BYTES FOR 2005 (Pt. 2)

Exploring Mars and Venus

Just some random thoughts…

- Ever notice how women with natural small breasts have a big ass, and women with natural large breasts have a small ass?

- Why do women with naturally large breast hide them, while women with augmented breasts show them to everyone? You’d think it’d be the opposite. Big breasted women would be proud of what god gave them and augmented women would be embarrassed to let the world know just how insecure they are about themselves.

- Am I the only one who thinks of Soleil Moon Frye's breast reduction as a crime against humanity?

- Have you noticed the more mainstream and popular pornography gets, the less attractive the women? In the 70's, porn was sort of accepted and most the chicks were average and older, like Kate Parker. Then, by the 80's, porn went into the gutter and gave birth to legends like Vanessa Del Rio, Barbara Dare, Ginger Lynn, Tracy Lords, Christy Canyon and Savannah. Now, porn is going into full mainstream acceptance and the chicks are going from average to downright unattractive. The more we learn about porn films, the less desirable they're becoming and these record-breaking gangbangs aren't helping. When the spotlights shine on the industry's elite, the more we see the truth and shudder in fear. A couple of nights ago, I saw Jenna Jameson, the woman I'd fantasized over for two years, who's only 30, but looked like she's 40. I'm 33, balding, and look younger than she does. And now there's this "new" chick, Jesse Jane, and as much as I want to look at her tits, I can't get by her face and wondering what's wrong with it.

- The bar scene has changed a lot since I was a “young buck”. I remember it was wrong to pick-up on drunken chicks. If you did, you were a perv and whatever happened could be grounds for rape charges. Now, a girl's (notice I wrote "girls" and not "women") alcohol level is a prerequisite to hooking up with her or not. I listen to more stories from both sexes about how they hooked up and it always begins with being drunk. Coincidently, while heteroe's need to get plastered to copulate, homosexuals are getting high on crystal meth and weed to get excited. Whatever happened to simple sex? Has a naturally induced orgasm or climax become “not so good”? Or are the younger generations becoming so numb through overindulgence they need something to enhance it? I can understand the 40 year olds who've done everything to everyone and need something spicy, but if you're pushing the envelope when you're 25, what’s left when your 50? The older I get, the closer we gravitate towards a future like the one in BRAVE NEW WORLD.


- Someone posed an interesting theory that fat chicks are better in bed for the same reasons they over eat. It's an emotional vacuum and need for pleasure that drives their over consumption for everything across the board. They eat too much. Watch too much television and are horny all the time. The same creativity that makes them mix different foods for new tastes also drives them to be more sexually adventurous. And need I bring up the whole oral fixation thing (I never met a fat chick who didn't like to suck it - know what I mean)? Makes you wonder - does every cool guy's black book of hotties have a fat chick's # hidden on the back page (mine would)?

- Having a regular job is the most dangerous place for any single man because it dulls their senses to the unattractive women they work with regularly. I've seen more good looking guys, who normally get hotties, end up with someone totally beneath them and the answers always the same, "I met her at work, didn't think much, but them she grew on me." DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! DANGER! The more you see someone day in and day out, the more accustomed you become to their appearance. Work is like alcohol, but slower. Be wary guys, the homely chick at works that's cool to hang around could be your next girlfriend if you're not careful.

- Whenever a chick eats way too much chocolate, regardless of her weight, odds are she needs to get laid and is probably an “easy mark”. For women, chocolate equals sex. For men, sex equals sex, there is no substitute.

- Here’s the difference between male and female masturbation: For women, they can masturbate and be satisfied. So much, they may not want to bother having actual sex. For a man, masturbation only reminds them how alone they are and badly need a woman. It’s a high that only leads to a harder fall later, like drugs. Unfortunately, women think that after men masturbate, we're sedated. When in fact, we're hornier than we were before.

So ladies, next time your man is bothering you for sex, but you have a "headache" and tell him to jerk off? You're only making it worse on yourselves. Just screw him and get it over with, okay.

- When I was younger, I'd watch porn and see some women finger-banging while the man was doing them. I thought it was because the man sucked in bed and took it as a sign for future reference. I was very wrong. Guys, when you're having sex, the BEST thing you can do is fingering that clit while you're pumping. It'll double your "product", trust me.

- Guys, I'm no one to give sex advise and I wouldn't if this wasn't PROVEN to work. But if you have a chick that's borderline between being a freak, but not a slut, and you want to something that will drive her nuts...

Rimming and anal tongue fucking is the thing (especially with older women).

Yeah, you're first reaction is disgust. Look, of course the woman has to be clean first and you can't go from pussy to ass and back to pussy, so this is something for the end of oral sex activity, before you're ready for penetration. But it drives women nuts. It worked for me and for my friends who thought I was crazy for doing it and for suggesting they follow suit. Then they tried it and their women loved it. It's new. It's different. And it makes the most docile women go animalistic.

Hey, prove me wrong...

- I hate it when women use terms of endearment, like "darling" or "baby" in casual conversation. How the fuck will you know what's up if she's saying "Hi, Cutie" to you, but then goes "Hey, Baby" to the janitor?

- Women think men are stupid. And yet, we've successfully convinced an entire generation that blow jobs are not part of sex, so now women offer it freely. In some cases, they do it to avoid intercourse and brag to their friends how sly they were in fooling us.

Oh yeah, we're the stupid ones.

- More and more attractive female teachers are fucking their male students and I'm left wondering where the fuck were they when I was in high school (or elementary for that matter).

JPG.

THOUGHT BYTES FOR 2005

The Great Hype Machine

In the closing months of 2004, two movies were on everyone's lips as "Must See" cinema, THE GRUDGE and RAY.

I made it a point to rent both this past Tuesday and was shocked. Not by the greatness of each, but that so many were impressed by them. It's not that they were bad movies, they just aren’t what they were made out to be, hallmarks of cinema in their respective genres.

THE GRUDGE was good, but "plain" is the only word to aptly describe it. The story revolved around a house and how anyone who went through the front door was cannon fodder for the ghosts within. I did enjoy the non-linear approach to the film, bouncing back and forth so the audience learns the house's past just as connecting events occurred in the present. And Japanese horror sensibilities are new and enjoyable. Where we've become accustomed to being superior to our monsters, here are creatures that are stronger than us. But these differences only point out the obvious questions even more, like "Why do they continue going into the house?"

You especially ask the question when the detective character explains to Sara Michelle Gellar the legend that is the foundation of the movie, and how three of his colleagues were already killed after being in that house. It's Western belief, if not actually true, that the Japanese have a culture more in touch with the supernatural. If a violent murder occurred in someone's home, I would imagine they would have the place cleansed of something before selling it. But the biggest problem with the movie is there's no ample character development, so you care nothing for the victims or our heroine. Resulting in a series of moments that surprise you, but aren't frightening (a problem running rampant in horror films lately, people mistake shock for fear and they’re not always the same).

I watched both dvd versions of RAY (the dvd offers an extended edition with cut scenes that are added into the film in a choppy manner that totally breaks your concentration) and while I won't take anything away from Jamie Foxx's performance, it wasn't as great as I was lead to believe, and definitely not worthy of two Oscar nominations (just one, for COLLATERAL, would have been fine). The best thing I can say is it was educational. I had no idea Ray Charles was such an asshole until I saw this movie. I thought, probably like most people, that he was a happy-go-lucky blind Negro who sang his songs and made his money. Leave it to Hollywood to tarnish the memory of a black man six months after his passing. Ray Charles was a legend, and part of the reason was his determination to triumph despite the adversity set before him. But you'd never know it to see this movie. 75% of the film was spent ramming his drug problem down your throat. In some areas, I felt I was being lead to the conclusion that drugs helped him to write the timeless songs he's known for today. And in others, I couldn't tell if his drive for success came from a love of music or his lust for fortune and glory. And what was he like after he beat his drug addiction? Fuck if I know, because the movie was over by then. After two and a half hours, I knew nothing of how he learned piano, why he loved music, or how a clean and sober Ray Charles lived. Twenty minutes into the film, he was high on weed and about thirty minutes after that he was shooting junk. I wasn't watching the life of a great musician, but a junky who got lucky. I don't even know the how's and why's of losing his eyesight. It just happened. I would think the filmmakers would want us leaving the film feeling a fondness and admiration for the man. But I'd prefer to forget what I saw and return to my ignorant "happy-go-lucky negro" imagery. As for Jamie, the man can act his ass off. We saw it in ANY GIVEN SUNDAY, ALI, and again in COLLATERAL. But I didn't see anything deserving of an Oscar. He did an impression, that's all. He sung like Ray because he can sing. He acted like Ray because he can act and is a talented impressionist. But was he Ray? No more than Denzel Washington was Malcolm X in 1992 or Stephen Biko in CRY FREEDOM from 1987.

We are all slaves to the Hollywood hype machine to the point that word of mouth means nothing anymore. Used to be when someone told you to check something out, it was good and you liked it. Now, a person's opinion is so based on media hype, they've decided to like something before they've experienced it. I was listening to the 97.1FM, the "Talk Station", where they're giving commercials for MILLION DOLLAR BABY more time than their shock jocks. And the narrator says this movie will "grab hold of your soul". What? It's a fucking movie, not the bible! But sure enough, people are blabbing about this movie that I never even knew about until the Golden Globes. Now, everyone wants to see it. It's the same kind of peer pressure that leads teens to drugs and alcohol, but for adults it's a lot less dangerous. It's our political beliefs, our taste in movies, our religion or the cars we drive.

THE GRUDGE was a plain movie and RAY was a good movie, no more or less. Are they worthy of so much praise? Not by any means. If you want to see a horror flick, stick to the classics that have frightened people for over a decade. And if you want to honor Ray Charles, praise the man, not the actor and…

STOP PLAYING HIS CD’S ALL THE GODDAMN TIME! YOU DIDN’T DO IT WHILE HE WAS ALIVE! DON’T START NOW THAT HE’S DEAD!

Smallville

I watched SMALLVILLE last night, another great episode. I especially liked how the writers pretty much solved the age old question, "How could Louis be an intelligent reporter and not know Clark was Superman?"

Answer: She did know, but waited for him to tell her. Can't get any simpler than that.

I wasn't always a fan of the show. Like others, I thought it spat on the icon. Especially since it premiered when DAWSON'S CREEK and BUFFY were at their peeks on the same network. I thought they were just injecting Supe's mythos with needless teen angst and weird shit. But then I started watching the second season and fell in love with it. The best compliment I could pay the show and it's writers is it makes you forget it's about Superman. You get so involved with the characters as they are that you have no desire to see them grow up. The biggest hook has to be the relationship between Clark and Lex. Again, you know what's coming, where they're going, but you're fascinated by the fragile friendship they have on the show. You're more interested in Lex as a man slowly being corrupted, than the villain in the comics. It's when I thought about this, that I realized why they wouldn't want to use Tom Welling in the movie. It would kill something in the show, like jumping to the end of a good book when you're only five chapters away. What would be the point of finishing it?

I saw a pattern in the hour long syndicated dramas when Highlander was on the air. Ever notice how the first season of any syndicated program sucks? It's always the second season that really gets the show on it's feet and either hits or misses. The first season of HIGHLANDER sucked so bad, I dumped it despite being a big fan of the movies. That they totally omitted the first movie angered and confused me. But in the second season, when they went to Europe, the show took on a totally different feel and I was into it. Unfortunately, not all shows make it that far. MORTAL KOMBAT was going somewhere, but never got there. Neither did HIGHLANDER: THE RAVEN. I only hope BATTLESTAR GALACTICA keeps racking up the ratings to bring us a second season that should be way better than this one, and this one is pretty good.

The State of the Union

I watched the State of the Union address last night for the first time ever.

I'll say this for Bush Jr., he makes people who never gave a shit about politics get involved.

Watching him literally hurts me, to know that such an "evil" man is one of the most powerful leaders in the world. And to know we put him there kills me. It’s not like we have no idea who or what he is, we all know he's evil. The information was leaked and it's old news. But we just don't care. Clinton almost gets fired because of a blowjob and real estate scandal. Bush Jr. does business with the men responsible for harboring a murderer and we don't do shit. We all say we support the troops, and yet we re-elect the man responsible for sending them to die for his own agenda. And why not, it's not like we'll ever join the military and have to risk our lives, right? I remember there was a lot of talk about a draft, and I wonder if that's when Bush's approval rating plummeted, only to rise again when he said there wouldn't be one.

I though it amusing how he went on and on about Iraq and how they feel about what's gone on. It was all second hand information. How do we know those comments and conversations happened at all? Last time I saw an Iraqi, he was screaming for us to get the fuck out of his country, and that was a block away from my job.

I kept asking myself, what if someone did that here, to us? What if Bush was some hard ass dictator and another country invaded America, forcing its ideals on me? How would I feel? Coincidentally, last night I also watched MULAN 2 with my daughter, and in the middle was this big musical number where three princesses, arranged to marry the emperor, were singing about "being like other girls", which meant forgoing all their cultural traditions. It hit me that Disney was putting out the message that American ideas on marriage and relationships are right and traditional Chinese ideology were wrong. And they're programming my daughter with that shit. No wonder mixed children or those whose parents weren’t born here have such a hard time. Media telling them their cultures are inferior compared to the American way of life surrounds them.

Our country's biggest fault is hubris. We think we're so goddamn special and perfect, that we force our ways and ideas on others. Why? Because we're free? What has our freedom brought us, but murder, death, inhumanity and a moral vacuum the size of the Grand Canyon? A lot of people will ask me if I'd rather live in a country where I wasn't free, and the answer is, if it keeps me from having my head shot off at an ATM machine, then yes, FUCK FREEDOM!

Most people don't even realize that they aren't free, and that's where a lot of problems start. We have LIMITED freedom, not complete freedom because that would lead to chaos. And the mess we've done, even with those limitations, makes me wonder if we deserve any freedoms at all. We take so many things for granted, has anyone ever asked if we deserve to be free? We're like children being allowed to run amok because our parents are pussies, too afraid to spank our asses, and punishing doesn't do anything when we can just crawl out our windows, run to another country and go crazy there.

America is due for a spanking. I'm just wondering which country's gonna do it. I wouldn't mind speaking another language; hardly anyone speaks English anymore anyway.

Adios.

JPG.