Les Jones

Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash has passed away at the age of 71.

I saw Cash twice. Once as a kid at a 4th of July celebration at Neyland Stadium, and again about seven years ago at the Tennessee Theater with June Carter.

A Cash song played a part in one of my parent's biggest arguments. My dad was a huge country music fan. He played the 45 of "Ring of Fire" so many times that my mom finally took it out on the porch and smashed it. Love is a burning thing.

Cash wrote his own memorial in 1994.

No regrets, all my debts
Will be paid when I get laid
Let the train blow the whistle when I go

You Damned Dirty Ashtray!

The other day I watched Longmire's Planet of the Apes Flash animation, which was great. It reminded me that I hadn't seen the movie in years, so I watched it tonight.

You've probably seen old TV footage where people are smoking on talk shows. Weird, isn't it? Well, that's nothing. In Planet of the Apes, Charleton Heston smokes a cigar on a spaceship!

"Sorry, Dodge, I should have asked before I lit up. Here, I'll open a window."

"The crew will need food and medical supplies for 24 months. Also, don't forget the Pall Malls. That's one pack per crew member times four crew members per waking day. Thankfully they sleep for months at a time."

"To complete our journey with sufficient oxygen, we'll have to recycle our atmosphere. So that means no menthols. I'm looking at you, Landon."

I'm curious. Did the ship's designers include a built-in ashtray, did Heston use one of the little plaid jobs with gravel in the bottom, or did he just ash on the floor?

Also, why am I writing James Lileks's columns for him?

Zodiac Killer News

I'm a true crime buff, and the Zodiac is one of my favorite unsolved cases. Zodiac was like a comic book super villian come to life. He wrote letters to the newspapers giving details of past crimes and clues to his identity using ciphers. In his most famous episode, he wore a costume (seen at right) during the murder. Zodiac committed his murders in California. Among the many suspects are infamous figures like Charles Manson and Ted Kaczynski.

Arthur Leigh Allen is the best-known suspect, having been fingered by Robert Graysmith in ZODIAC, the first book to cover the case. Interestingly, Allen wore a Zodiac diving watch whose cross and circle insignia matched that in the killer's letters. The cross and circle may also be related to the radians theory of Zodiac's victim selection process. Allen was later cleared by DNA evidence. He died in 1992.

Rick Marshal is a better bet. He was a machinist and teletype operator, and worked as a projectionist at a small theater. That may be significant, since one Zodiac letter mentioned The Red Phantom (the name of a silent movie) and the Zodiac persona may have been inspired by a 1930s movie, Charlie Chan at Treasure Island, that involved a San Francisco villain named Zodiac.

New Developments

• Tom Voigt has the unreleased Zodiac letter sent to a TV station in 1978.
• There's a Zodiac movie in production: In Control of All Things.
• Another suspect in the news is 54 year old convicted killer William Mentzer, though some of the facts don't seem to fit.
• There's a new book coming soon, with a new suspect. Mike Kelleher found the suspect by an unorthodox method. He knew that Zodiac liked sending letters to newspapers. He surmised that Zodiac might have written letters to the editors of California newspapers using his real name prior to committing any murders. Kelleher found a letter to the editor that matched Zodiac's writing style, researched its author... and found a picture of him in a magazine that matched the police composite sketch of Zodiac. The 81 year old suspect is still living. UPDATE December 26, 2004: more on this theory

Imagine Isaac Hayes Singing the Theme

If you're like me, you were amorous for VH1's "I Love the '70s." And if you're really like me, you had passionate feelings for "I Love the '80s." And of course, we were mad for early 2003. Well then, we're both going to (heart) I Love Six Months Ago.

Lyle Lovett

Just got back from the Lyle Lovett show in Knoxville. All I can say is that any country/swing band that has extended cello solos is all right in my book.

It's late, so no blogging tonight. Tune in Wednesday. Meanwhile, check out this thread at SouthKnoxBubba and the discussion of government grants for education. Beck and I aren't convinced that a four year degree is the best choice for everyone, particularly with anything-goes-majors on taxpayer money.

LATER: on a similar note, read today's post from Donald Sensing on the error of applying compassion to public policy using someone else's money.

Bi-lingual Movie Reviews: Will Farrell's Elf

Tuvimos gusto de la película.
We liked the movie.

La película es divertida.
The movie is funny.

Vea la película divertida.
See the funny movie.

This has been another exciting and educational edition of bi-lingual movie reviews!

The Simple Life

Melissa and I caught the premier episode last night. It started slow. Watching Paris and Nicole by themselves is surprisingly boring. Things got entertaining once the girls met the family they'll live with for the rest of the season. It's "Green Acres" for the Naughties, in reality show format with two blondes instead of one.

Questions:

1. Is Paris as stupid as she acts? "What's Wal-Mart? A place where they sell walls?"
2. How long do you think it will be before one of the girls does a Playboy centerfold?
3. How did the farm family wind up with a well in the middle of the floor on their sleeping porch?

Bonus! Check Rolling Stone's Paris Hilton interview: "What you think of Paris Hilton, what she thinks of herself and what she's really like are three entities so separate and distinct that if they were people they wouldn't end up in the same room. ... She thinks she's a pet lover who donates to charity, does not drink or do drugs and hardly ever goes out. "I am not a party person," says Hilton, blinking her catlike royal-blue eyes. "Mostly I like to spend time with my dogs." "

60 Second Movie Reviews

No, not a movie review that can be read in 60 seconds. A review of 60 seconds of the movie, silly.

Okay, so there's a story behind this. I walked out of a movie today. Can't remember the last time I did that. Melissa stayed (though she later said she wished she had walked out, too) so I decided to pop into all of the movies in the multiplex to get a quick feel for each. To heck with reading movie reviews. From now on this is how I'll decide what movies to watch.

The Missing (Tommy Lee Jones, Kate Blanchett) - Excellent acting and interplay between the cast. If it has a plot at all it should be a winner.

Gothika - Hard to judge, but seemed like a good enough horror flick. (It was dark and there was some scary stuff. Is there some other criteria for horror movies?)

The Haunted Mansion - Cheesy, unfunny Eddie Murphy vehicle.

The Last Samurai - Tom Cruise wasn't in the scene I watched, but the movie looked great. They were marching into battle and it looked like it was going to be a doozy of a dilly. If I could have stayed to watch any of the movies in the multiplex it would have been this one.

Elf (Ed Asner, Will Farrell, Bob Newhart) - We actually saw this a few weeks ago and loved it. Just to test the methodology I was using I popped in and watched 60 seconds. Even in that short glimpse the acting, mood and pacing were great, and I would have predicted it would be good.

Cat in the Hat (Mike Meyers) - I can imagine that two hours would be exhausting. I felt punch drunk after much less than that. Heavy on prop comedy, with lots of contemporary gags - the part I watched had some out-of-place joke about insurance or some such. Hyperactive kids might love it, but a lot of the jokes will go over their heads.

Bad Santa - Billy Bob Thornton doesn't play a lovable, funny drunk. He plays an alcoholic. Less funny ha-ha and more funny weird.

Love Don't Cost a Thing - The 60 second test let me down on this one. Thirty seconds after I walked in the cleaning crew followed, and 30 seconds after that the move ended. What I can tell you for sure is that the credits were sensibly-organized and legible, and how many times do you hear that about a movie these days?

Stuck on You (Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear) - The previews for the new Farrelly Brothers movie play it as a comedy, but the part I saw was dramatic, and had a "big heart" as they say.

Something's Gotta Give (Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Keanu Reeves) - This is the one I walked out on. It's a pity I watched more than 60 seconds of this stinker and its bad dialogue. "Barry? You're Erica Barry, the famous playwright?" "I remember you now. I saw an article about you in The New Yorker." Frugal masochists can go to a matinee and get two hours of that punishment for the low, low price of $5.

Calvin and Hobbes = Fight Club?

That's Galvin Chow's thesis in "I am Jack's younger self." Leave your skepticism at the door and squint your eyes and it just about works.

Review of Gregg Easterbrooks' New Book

Virginia Postrel gives a thumb's down to Gregg Easterbrook's new book, The Progress Paradox. That just goes to support my contention that Easterbrook is a tool.

Uncle Fidel

Hollywood loves a ruthless dictator.

Oliver Stone loves Fidel Castro.

Arthur Miller loves Fidel Castro.

Fidel Castro is, of course, the unelected dictator-for-life of communist Cuba. Less than a year ago he arrested 100 journalists and critics, and has sentenced some journalists to 20 years in prison.

One actor who doesn't like Castro is Robert Duval. Duval was on CBS' 60 Minutes Wednesday night. He criticized Steven Spielberg for buddying up to Castro:

"Spielberg went down there recently and said, 'The best seven hours I ever spent was actually with Fidel Castro.' Now, what I want to ask him, ... 'Would you consider building a little annex on the Holocaust museum, or at least across the street, to honor the dead Cubans that Castro killed.' That's very presumptuous of him to go there," Duvall told Charlie Rose, according to excerpts of the interview released by CBS.

Spielberg's spokesperson denies he made the statement about Castro.

Lost in Translation

I've been ignoring Melissa this week, so I told her I'd take her on a Friday night date to make up for it. After dinner we caught Lost In Translation. Fantastic movie.

The movie isn't so much a story as a mood sustained for two hours. Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is a washed-up movie actor reduced to endorsing whiskey in Japan. Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) is the neglected wife of a photographer (Giovanni Rabisi). Both characters are awash in passivity and helplessness, and find each other in a Japanese hotel.

One of the things I liked about the movie is the anti-glamor. Young Charlotte looks good, but Harris's face is a wreck. Other actors in the movie have imperfect teeth and boring clothes. The hotel lounge is sleazy and depressing. The gritty actors and sets give the movie depth and help tell the story.

If you like Bill Murray in dramatic roles, you'll probably like Mad Dog and Glory, with Uma Thurman, Robert de Niro and David Caruso. Murray has a relatively small part as the villian, but it's a chance to see him in full drama mode with no fallback to comedy.

Weird Al's Bob Dylan Tribute Composed Entirely of Palindromes

Weird Al has a new song, "Bob," that's a tribute (whatever that means) to Bob Dylan. Each line is a palindrome:

Oh no! Don Ho!
Nurse, I spy gypsies - run!
Senile felines
Now I see bees I won
UFO tofu
We panic in a pew
Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo
God! A red nugget! A fat egg under a dog!
Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog

Back from the Mindy Smith Show

Just got back from the Mindy Smith show in the Old City in Knoxville. She sounded great. Metro Pulse ran a cover story on Mindy this week so the place was packed upstairs and down.

The picture to the right is my first attempt at moblogging using my new fancy pants camera cell phone. If the Soviets had had as much computing power in 1958 as this cell phone has in 2004 they would have won the Cold War.

The camera is pretty decent at 640 x 480, but it doesn't have a flash so it depends on mucho ambient light, hence the banding in this pic. Here's a better-lit photo of one of Melissa's Halloween novelties:

The phone is the LG VX6000, which was Consumer Reports highest-rated phone for Verizon.

Best Cover Songs

SayUncle is taking nominations for the best cover song. Namely, when the cover is better than the original. For instance, Van Halen's version of "You Really Got Me" vs. the original Kinks song.

My nomination: Any cover of any Bob Dylan song, ever.

For best covers heard in or originating from Knoxville, there's Guadalcanal Diary closing their show at Vic and Bill's Deli with "Kumbayah," Stevie Ray Vaughan's extended "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" at the Civic Colisseum, REM covering Foreigner's "Midnight Blue" at the Tommy Bowl, and Smokin' Dave and the Premo Dopes doing the Batman theme music at World's Fair Park.

Movie Review: Monster

In honor of Oscar night and Charlize Theron's win (which Melissa just informed me of), a quick review of Monster.

Charlize Theron is incredible. She picks up all of the body lanuguage of someone who isn't in touch with reality and who has a lot of anger. Her performance definitely makes me want to watch her other movies.

Any story told from the point of view of the bad guy risks being sympathetic to same. How well the producers compensate for that is open to your point of view. To balance out the fact that the protagonist is a lesbian, prostitute serial killer, Christina Ricci's extended family is painted as being oppressive (the dad of the house wears a wife beater), fundamentalist (they go to church and talk about God), and trashy (they have tacky furniture). All of which may have been true in real life, for all I know, but one suspects stereotypes are being paraded.

On the other hand, the film does show a progression of reprehensible behavior. Theron's first victim is a sadistic rapist, and it's a case of self-defense as shown in the movie. Gradually, she begins seeking victims when she needs money or a new set of wheels, and the moral slippery slope becomes obvious. (And in reality, Christina Ricci's real-life equivalent is active in the process of pawning the victim's possessions.) Her final victim is a well-intentioned person caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it's only then that the film allows her to be caught.

Flash Games

Little Fluffy Industries is a new index of online Flash games from the creative mind of Lore at Slumbering Lungfish, who just got an internship at Wired.

My favorite flash game right now is Bubbels (that's how it's spelled). I've played the same game on Mac and PC, but I forget the original name.

Seal of Good Practice for TV

Jeff Jarvis blogs the Seal of Good Practice for TV, which was in effect until Reagan killed it. Wow. I had no idea the restrictions TV shows were working under.

On the one hand, there are prime shows that go too far. (With masturbation and oral sex used in jokes on TV, what is it going to take to shock people 20 years from now?) But these restrictions are too much of an impingement on freedom of political speech, and Jarvis fisks them appropriately.

Attacks on religion and religous faiths are not allowed. Reverence is to mark any mention of the name of God, His attributes and powers.... [Clergy] portrayed in their callings are vested with the dignity of their office and under no circumstances are to be held up to ridicule.

Respect is to be maintained for the sanctity of marriage and the value of the home. Divorce is not treated casually nor justified as a solution for marital problems.

Exhibitions of fortune-telling, astrology, phrenology, palm-reading, and numerology are acceptable only when required by a plot...

The presentation of techniques of crime in such detail as to invite imitation shall be avoided.

Law enforcement shall be upheld, and the officers of the law are to be portrayed with respect and dignity.

Beer Always Tastes Better from a Plastic Cup

Just got back from the Bela Fleck concert in downtown Knoxville. We saw a lot of our friends there and had a good time. There are lots more good shows this year. The Gillian Welch/Mindy Smith show is a must see for us.

Speaking of which, Melissa ran into one of her friends from open mike night from years ago, and she had a funny story. She was in Nashville and ran into their mutual friend Mindy Smith (see here and here), not knowing that Mindy signed a recording deal and had appeared on The Tonight Show. She told Mindy, "hey, I'm performing at Dollywood, if you need any tickets, let me know." Mindy's response was "Um, I sing with Dolly Parton now, so I'm probably set on Dollywood tickets."

Melissa's friend says Sharky's on Alcoa Highway has a good open mike night on Mondays.

Back to Bela Fleck. In college I was the science editor for the student paper, but I occasionally wrote other stuff. One time a bunch of us went to Chattanooga and saw Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. After the show I finagled my way to the band and interviewed Fleck. This was possible because a) I said I was a reporter, and b) proved it by producing a tape recorder. Being a reporter gives you amazing access to talk to interesting people. I miss that.

I did write up the show and interview and published an article in the paper. I still have that interview tape. I listened to it a few years ago and realized something. I was wasted when I was talking to Fleck. It didn't seem to faze him. Lots of entertainment reporters must be wasted.

"The Passion of Christ" at the Drive-in

The Passion of Christ is playing at the Parkway Drive-in in Maryville. So if you're looking for a place to drink beer with your buddies or make out with your girlfriend, there you go.

(I don't know why The Passion of Christ playing at a drive-in strikes me odd, but it does. Sort of like the Seinfeld episode where Jerry's parents catch him making out during Schindler's List.)

Oliver Stone Licks Fidel Castro's Boots (Again)

Oliver Stone has another lovefest with Communist dictator-for-life Fidel Castro. The new one is called Looking for Fidel. Ann Louise Bardach has an interview with Stone. It starts like this and doesn't get any better:

ALB: Do you know that the Cubans are refusing visas to virtually all reporters and not allowing them back in the country?

OS: You know, the advantage I have is to be a filmmaker. [Castro] seemed to love my movies.

Tony Rice's Brother

Tony Rice played Sundown in the City last night in Market Square. I didn't go, which is a shame, since I've heard good things but never seen him.

He was supposed to appear as one of the performers at one of the Steve Kaufman Guitar Camp concerts I attended, but couldn't make it. His brother, who is also a prominent bluegrass musician, stood in for him.

Tony Rice's brother's name is Wyatt Rice. Say it fast. And I kid you not.

Jay Leno Goes Howard Stern

Watched Law and Order, then the 11 o'clock news, then left the TV on NBC and caught The Tonight Show for the first time in forever.

I knew that Leno had hired Stuttering John from Stern's show, though I don't think he's started yet. Leno has also added bimbos to the show. The cue card bimbo. The onstage bimbo with the huge gozangas.

I'm firmly in the pro-breast camp, but come on. The way Leno is doing this is tasteless, and it doesn't fit in with his show at all. He must be getting desparate for ratings.

Which Bob Dylan Song Are You?

Speaking of Tangled Up in Blue, I just found out something from this review of a new book that details the making of the Blood on the Tracks album. The songs were originally recorded with one set of musicians. Before the album was released, Dylan had second thoughts and re-recorded most of the songs with a different set of musicians, and it's the second batch of songs - including Tangled Up in Blue - that you hear on the album

Dylan on American Idol

Bob Dylan wants to be a guest judge on American Idol next season. When guest judges are on the show, contestants perform songs from the judge's repertoire, and get mentoring from the judges. Dylan no doubt sees this as a chance to introduce his songs to a new generation.

"Come See the Racism Inherent in the Reality Show System"

Elton John recently said that American Idol was racist, because Jennifer Hudson (who is black) got voted off. Well, Elton John - assuming that's your real name (which it isn't) - with just four contestants left, Begging to Differ notes how incredibly racist (and sexist!) the results are. All four remaining contestants are brown-skinned women. Via Spoons.

The fifth-to-last contestant voted off was George Huff, who was my personal favorite. The winner is now guaranteed to be a woman.

On Survivor, women are outwinning men four seasons to three. I have a question for you all. Are reality shows more favorable to women? If you have to do something mean - like voting someone off the show - is it easier to be mean to a man than a woman?

Robinson Crusoe

Watching the 1996 remake of Robinson Crusoe with Pierce Brosnan, and it's awesome. I didn't realize it was Brosnan until I clicked TiVo's info button. His acting is great, the scenery and filming are perfect, and there's action galore. And there's Pierce Brosnan - wirey, long-haired, and shirtless - for the ladies. In other words, Melissa liked it, too.

Mindy Smith on Smallville

Mindy Smith's songs were featured on last night's Smallville season finale. She got a nice mention at the end of the credits. More posts about local gal done good Mindy Smith.

Gillian Welch and Mindy Smith Show

They're tonight's artists at the free Sundown in the City concert in Market Square. We'll be there

LATER: Back from the show. Met Jay and Angie and her baby Philip for dinner. Ran into a bunch of people, including a friend from college I hadn't seen for 5 years. He's back in Knoxville and doing production work for HGTV now.

And Mindy and Gillian? They were too low key for that venue to make an impression. There's a reason Dylan went electric. I've seen them in a theater and they were great, so don't hesitate to see them at an indoor show.

The Man Show

Just got full cable turned back on today. I've been turning it back to just basic cable in the summers for a while now, and after last summer we didn't turn it back on. I've got a whole season of South Park to catch up on.

I'll be skipping The Man Show, though. Call me crazy, but when both of your original hosts leave and your musical director dies, maybe the decent thing to do is to cancel the show.

Movie: Cheaper by the Dozen

Just finished it. Average, but gave us some things to think about. Such as "don't let the kids throw sharp darts" and "don't let the kids play roller hockey in a two-story house." Thanks, Steve Martin!

Melissa's comment: Look at all of our pets. We'll probably wind up with a dozen kids.
My comment: Sure, if stray children show up at our door and we put out bowls of food for them.

Movie: Battle of Britain

It's on Turner Classic Movies right now. Brilliantly-filmed action movie starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine as Spitfire pilots. Anyone who enjoys the fighter scenes in Black Sheep Squadron should go ga-ga over this.

LATER: Steven Den Beste has a fascinating history of William Foxley, the man in the movie whose face has been disfigured by a fire in his airplane. The disfigurement wasn't makeup. Foxley was burned when the bomber he served on was shot down.

TiVo Needs a Reminder Feature

I was playing with TiVo's Season Pass Manager tonight. I realized that there are some shows (like Seinfeld re-runs and The Daily Show) that I don't necessarily want to record all the time. I'd rather have a little reminder pop up telling me they're about to start.

Truth is, I don't much care about watching yesterday's Daily Shows. If it's about to come on, I might want to watch it, but I don't want it taking up hard drive space.

Movie: Run, Lola, Run

Lola's boyfriend, Manny, was delivering money for the mob, and mislaid it on the subway. Now he has just 20 minutes until his contact arrives to take the money. Just 20 minutes to come up with 100,000 DM or he'll be killed.

The movie follows Lola's attempt to come up with the money in something lke real-time. That makes you wonder how the producer plans to fill an 81 minute movie with a 20 minute sequence of events, and thatleads to the film's hook. You get to see Lola's efforts not once but three times. Each effort shows slightly different decisions, and the different outcomes for the main characters and incidental actors.

The movie is in German, with subtitles, and we found the subtitles easy to follow. The live action is accented with occasional animation, and the action and editing keep your attention.

Steve Kaufman Guitar Camp Concerts

Steve Kaufman's guitar camp is in session at Maryville College. Kaufman is a three-time winner of the National Flatpicking Championship, has numerous CDs, and founded this annual music camp that draws noted guitarists from around the world.

Check the schedule to find your favorite. The last night is always fun as they hand out awards for the best students, with each one playing a few songs. I'd also recommend the Thursday night show with the Italian guitarist Beppe Gambatta. Beppe is consistently good year after year.

This is a little video (2.1 MB) I took last year of Australian guitar player Tommy Emmanuel drumming his guitar. Emmanuel is a mad man. See him if you get the chance.

Payola

Alex Tabarrok asks why radio payola is illegal. Jeez, these economists. They're just now catching up to the leading-edge economic thought of John Cougar Mellencamp.

Mountain Stage

Watching "Mountain Stage" on PBS. Asleep at the Wheel was first up, and as always that band is simply amazing. They sound better on stage than most bands sound in the studio. Next up was local favs Robinella and the CC String (Robinella has a different look) and then Steve Forbert.

Asleep at the Wheel performed "Don't Fence Me In." ("Give me land/Lots of Land/Under starry skies above/Don't fence me in.") Do you know who wrote that song? I was amazed. Answer below.

Movie: The Big Fish

Six-word summary: Forrest Gump with an unreliable narrator.

Watched it with Melissa and Jay. We all wanted to like it, but it was too goofy. The ending was very emotional, but getting there was a chore.

Fifteen Million Dollars Isn't Money

Not money! Fifteen million dollars. Money is what you take to the grocery store. It's what you get out of an ATM. Fifteen million dollars isn't money. It's a motive with a universal adapter on it.
- Joe Sarno (James Caan), The Way of the Gun

Johnny Ramone RIP

He's gone Hard to believe that there's only one Ramone left. At this rate the Rolling Stones will outlive them. Hell, The Who will outlive them.

Movie: Mulholland Falls (1996)

Starring Nick Nolte, Melanie Griffith, Chazz Palminteri, Chris Penn, Jennifer Connally, John Malkovich, and Daniel Baldwin.

Noir crime movie set in Los Angeles during the 1940s. The plot involves a murdered woman and her ties to the U.S. nuclear weapons program. It's complicated by the fact that Nolte's detective character and the woman had an affair that was caught on film.

If you liked 1997's LA Confidential, you'll like this movie. It's not up the to the same standard, but it's a great TV flick if you catch it on AMC.

Notes on The Empire Strikes Back

I bought the Star Wars DVD boxed set as a birthday present to myself, so this week Melissa and I are having a Star Wars marathon. Some notes from tonight:

• Luke Skywalker turns out pretty well for an orphan farmboy who dropped out of Jedi school.
• At Christmas time between episodes IV and V someone must have given Darth Vader the Old Spice Helmet Polish Gift Set. That is one shiny helmet.
• The scene where Leia kisses (her brother!) Luke to make Han jealous is grody.
• But Leia's hair looks a lot better than in "A New Hope." Actually, everyone's hair looks better. But the movie would have more sci-fi street cred if everyone had '70s feather hair, like in Battlestar Galactica. Can I get an amen?
• If Princess Leia had paid off Han's debt to Jabba she wouldn't have spent the next episode almost naked and in chains in Jabba's cave. That would have been a great loss to all of us who went through puberty in that era.
• Speaking of which, there's a Web site called Leia's Metal Bikini, or as I like to call it, The Greatest Web Site on the Entire Internet.

Scary Halloween-themed Puns from Mark Steyn

In his reviews of horror movies. First up, Wolf, starring Jack Nicholson.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, incidentally, was Mike Nichols’ first directorial assignment. Three decades on, he’s lost four words and lost for words.

And from his review Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein:

At the beginning, you can see what Branagh’s up to: ‘The dawn of the Nineteenth Century,’ the screen reads. ‘A world on the brink of revolutionary change…’ We are in the midst of a wild sea storm; ‘All hands to the mast!’ Ah-ha! He’s trying to make the clichés real — and Romantic. But he can’t leave well alone, and he winds up furiously trying to tie his shambling creation together, just like the Doktor: a stitch in time saves, nein?

Kennedy III: Magic Bullet

I just saw a good show on the Discovery Channel that's an antidote to the usual JFK conspiracy theories: "Kennedy III: Magic Bullet."

I was impressed with the show's adherence to the facts, rather than the usual conspiracy mongering. For instance, they noted that some witnesses thought they heard four shots. Sounds like there was a second shooter, doesn't it. But to put that in perspective, they gave the additional fact that 17 people heard four shots, but 97 people heard only three shots, which matches the Warren Commission version of events.

Based on photograpic comparisons, if Badge Man was standing behind the wall, his total body height would be 2.8 feet. Assuming he was of ordinary height, he would have to have been some distance behind the wall and 16-20 feet in the air.

They did some test firings with a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle using the same Western Cartridge ammunition that Oswald used. Amazingly, when fired into a pine log, the bullet penetrated 43 inches and in perfect condition. (Conspiracy theorists have made a big deal out of the fact that the bullet that penetrated Kennedy and Connelly was in such good shape. In reality, it only looks pristine from one angle. From other angles it's clearly deformed.)

I don't consider any of these reconstructions definitive, but they do show what's plausible. Their reconstruction using a rifle and anatomical stand-ins showed that the magic bullet was at least plausible.

Good stuff. For online JFK conspiracy debunking, visit John McAdams' site.

World's Most Boring Reality TV Show

From StreetHop via Jim Treacher.

On September 14, Spike TV and Ol' Dirty Bastard will premiere a new reality series called "Stuck To ODB," where a normal individual must stay within 10 feet of the rapper for five full days. Should he achive the daunting task, he will win $25,000. After the first showing, it will be seen on Tuesdays at 10:00 PM (ET) and 11:00 PM (PT).

Repost: Review of Will Farrell's "Elf"

I'm seeing new ads for it on TV and at video stores, so here you go.

Why I Don't Play Role Playing Games

jwz:

Someone brought over the PS2 version of The Sims once, and it was even more SimKafka than the others! Ok, what can I do here... "Let's have a party! Start making phone calls. Oh no, now I'm hungry. Oh wait, the cat shit on the floor. Oh, now I'm tired. Now I'm poor. The toilet is starting to smell. My friends say I'm neglecting them." What the FUCK? People do this for fun? I think actual SimKafka would be more entertaining than this: "you wake up. You are a giant insect." Turn over. "You cannot turn over." Call for help. "You have no mouth and you must scream."

A long time ago I saw a movie biography of physicist Stephen Hawking. One of the relatives who knew him as a child said that Hawking was always inventing games. The games were absurdly complex and became "a substitute for living." That's how I think of role playing games.

Review: National Treasure

Nicholas Cage plays the latest generation of the Gates family to track a legenday fortune from the birth of America. The clues are scattered across the colonies, to the arctic circle, and to the back of the 100 dollar bill and the Declaration of Independence.

The chain of clues and artifacts is easy to follow, and there's a strong feel of American history. The characters are easy to keep straight, too. The good guys have history degrees and early American artifacts. The bad guys have guns and Cockney accents. (Every time the villains appeared I expected Nick Cage's sidekick to yell "The British are coming! The British are coming!")

It's a fun flick, with the usual spy escapades overlain with on-your-feet academic sluething, but it would be better if the spectre of Hollywood didn't so frequently overshadow the Capital and Independence Hall. It was too easy to predict plot twists that followed tinseltown formulas.

You'll probably enjoy National Treasure, but you'll enjoy it more if you consume a healthy dose of disbelief-suspending chemicals before watching. (Especially the arctic scene at the beginning.) Speaking of pharmaceuticals, Nicholas Cage needs to back off the botox and Valium. If he gets any more relaxed he's going to wake up in a Bob Hope and Bing Crosby caper.

Recommended, but leave your disbelief at the door for maximum enjoyment.

Can You Write "Fuck" on TV?

We're watching "The Hebrew Hammer" on Comedy Central. There's a scene with a yellow sign that says "No Vietcong Ever Fucked Wit Kwanzaa." Fine by me, but if writing it instead of saying it gets around the rules then Trey Parker and Matt Stone are missing out on a golden opportunity.

Looking for a Movie to Watch Over the Holidays?

I was reading about Capricorn One and discovered The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review. Richard Scheib has reviewed every major sci-fi film on the planet and spices his reviews with hefty doses of sci-fi history. I'm not as big a fan of horror or fantasy, but I assume those parts of the site are just as exhaustive. By the way, the Capricorn One DVD was just seven bucks on Amazon.

Bonus!

If you like corny sci-fi movies, look for the movies rated in black stars, like The Creeping Terror:

The Creeping Terror is one of those real Z movie classics. It’s right up there with Cat Women of the Moon (1953), Robot Monster (1953), Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958), Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), The Horror of Party Beach (1964) and other such classics of ineptitude from the same period. Like most of these films, it exerts a terribleness that is fascinating to see. The gap between what it sets out to achieve and what it actually does achieve is a gaping chasm. An alien ship coming down is rather laughably represented by stock footage of the launch of a Saturn rocket being played in reverse. Two thirds or more of the plot is told in narration – the reason for this being that the film’s soundtrack was lost and so director Art J. Nelson dubbed the entire thing himself.

Movie: The Bourne Supremecy

The Bourne Identity was a great action flick with a twist on the spy motif. Jason Bourne is a spy who has forgotten his identity. In The Bourne Supremacy his agency decides to eliminate him once and for all to clean up the last traces of the hit squad he worked with.

Supremacy lacks the mystery of the first movie. We already know that Bourne is a spy. The sequel reveals bits of his past, but they're not as compelling as they could have been. Supremacy also lacks a love interest. Even if you're not interested in a romantic angle, the love interest is typically a way to create vulnerabilities for the hero, who could easily escape some situations if he didn't have to consider anyone else. Without that sense of drama and inner conflict, too many of the action sequences become vapid.

Movie: Collateral

I'm not a big fan of actor Tom Cruise, but I am a big fan of director Michael Mann. In some circles he's best known for Miami Vice. For everyone who has forgiven him for that he's probably best known for the movie HEAT, one of the best cops-n-robbers action dramas of the '90s, starring Amy Brenneman, Robert De Niro, Ashley Judd, Val Kilmer, Al Pacino, Tom Sizemore, and Jon Voight.

I mentioned before that HEAT bears a lot of similarities to Mann's earlier film, Thief, starring James Caan. Collateral likewise bears similarities to HEAT. There's the impersonal Los Angeles landscape, where De Niro's Vince Neil McCauley looked out over the city's lights and protested to Amy Brennamen's Eady that "I am alone. I am not lonely." Tom Cruise's Vincent tells Jamie Foxx's cabdriver Max that he hates LA and can't ever wait to leave. To explain why, he tells the story of a guy who died on the MTA train and circled around and around LA before anyone noticed he was dead.

Neil and Vincent share other viewpoints. When Max tells Vincent about the woman who had been in his cab, who had given him her card, Vincent implores Max to call her. "Life is short," he says. Call her if we get through this tonight.

That recalls the conversation between Neil and Eady in HEAT after his plans have been thwarted and his friends are dead or scattered. "I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. I know life is short. Whatever time you get is luck. If you wanna walk, you walk right now. Or on your own - on your own - you choose to come with me. All I know is... all I know is there's no point in me going anywhere anymore, if it's going to be alone. Without you."

Vincent's mission in Collateral is to kill six people in one night, while Max is just trying to survive and stay true to himself. The clock works to enhance the drama, and Mann makes sure to flesh out his small cast to make them interesting and sympathetic. The end of the movie is hugely suspenseful.

Collateral Script
HEAT Script
HEAT: The Script vs. the Movie

Jerry Orbach R.I.P.

Melissa and I are huge fans of Law and Order and especially Orbach's character, Lenny Briscoe. Orbach left the cast with plans for his own show next year, but the new show was cancelled, presumably due to his illness. He'll be missed.

Movie: I, Robot

The sci-fi future in I, Robot is modest. Instead of gleaming cities, there are concrete, asphalt and brick cities interspersed with high tech, which is how cities actually evolve. There are voice interfaces and cars that can drive themselves, but the robotic future is really just dawning. Wil Smith's mother is hoping to win one in the lottery to help her around the house.

I, Robot is a typical Hollywood action flick. There's a big name talent, lots of good looking actors, great scenery and fx, and some really good action scenes. The characters are a little flat, though, and to compensate their attitudes are cranked way up until their mouths write checks the script can't cash. All in all it's a pretty good movie, though it's probably best viewed by Wil Smith fans rather than Isaac Asimov fans.

The Last Waltz Tonight on TCM

Tonight Turner Classic Movies is showing a commercial-free New Year's eve broadcast of The Last Waltz, Martin Scorsese's concert documentary about The Band's farewell show. Check local listings for times. It's airing at 10:00 PM Eastern here.

Even if you're not a fan of The Band, tune in for the guest performances by Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, and others. The Band does an incredible job backing all of them. Their own songs sound great, too, especially anything featuring drummer Levon Helm.

- Wikipedia entry for The Last Waltz
- Wikipedia entry for The Band

Movie: The Aviator

I can't imagine anyone not liking the Howard Hughes bio The Aviator. There's the Hollywood angle - the movies, the starlets, the battles with the censorship board. There's the industrial angle - the struggles to maintain financial viability in the face of Hughes' seat-of-the-pants management style, the rivalry with PanAm, and the Senate hearings. Then there's the love story and the airplanes, which the movie nicely intertwines, combined with his inevitable deterioration into insanity. (Hughes had acute obsessive-compulsive disorder, possibly caused by late-stage syphilis.)

The movie is visually stunning. There are easily a dozen scenes I can recall. Hughes discovering Jean Harlow in the Coconut Grove, the airspeed test of the H-1, the Hell's Angels screenings, meeting Kate Hepburn, the Senate hearings, the censor board on The Outlaw, visiting the Hepburn family in Connecticut, Hughes burning his clothes in the courtyard, the crash of the XF-11 in Beverly Hills, the breakup scene with Kate Hepburn, Hughes' Kleenex-covered house, the test run of the Spruce Goose.

Cate Blanchett's turn as Kathryn Hepburn is huge. She's sure to get an Oscar nomination.

Leonardo DiCaprio is very good as Howard Hughes. One thing that distracted me is that his crackling voice reminded me of the Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) in Unforgiven.

Martin Scorsese directed the movie, and Michael Mann produced. Scorsese is a Hollywood legend, but Mann is an unsung hero who knows how to film movies about strong-willed characters. It's a toss-up as to which one of them deserves more credit.

- Plane and Pilot magazine on Howard Hughes via Philip Greenspun
- Howard Hughes biography on Wikipedia

Luke Skywalker: a One-man Play Performed by Cletis

Updated September 24, 2006.

Spotlight floods a lone man on the stage, seated on a barstool with a curlicue of cigarette smoke rising above his head like a world-weary halo.

My name is Luke Skywalker. I was born in a faraway galaxy on the lonely desert planet of Tattoine. I am a orphan on account of Darth Vader killed my pappy, and I never did know my momma.

When I got to be about 18 my friends all left and went to the Academy. I wanted to go to the Academy, too, but we wuz poor and I had to stay at home and help my aunt and uncle raise moisture crops.

Ben Kenobi was going to teach me to be a Jedi. Then Vader killed him, too.

Later on I went to Jedi school. Master Yoda tried to teach me the ways of the Jedi, but then my friends got mixed up in some trouble and I had to drop out. I tried going back but Master Yoda he up and died, too.

I was in love with a woman oncet, a princess, but she was in love with my best friend. Also, we figured out she was my sister.

One day my dead daddy showed up agin. He had some big scheme for ruling the universe. He wanted me to kill some guy. When I wouldn't go along with it he tried to kill me. Lucky all he did was chop off this here hand.

I finally had to give daddy the "come to Jesus" talk. After he got right with God we teamed up and opened a can of whoop ass on the emperor.

Movie: Anchorman - the Legend of Ron Burgundy

If you like Will Farrell, you'll like this movie. The cologne scene alone is worth it. It also has the funniest excuse in the world for not having women in the workplace ("I heard their periods attract bears").

Movie: Garden State

The highest praise I can give this movie is that Melissa and I watched it Friday night, loved it, then watched it again Saturday. We've never done that before, and if you invite us to your house to watch it again, we'll be right over. I also told Melissa she could buy me the soundtrack for Valentine's Day.

Scrubs' lead Zach Braff writes, directs, and stars in the movie. He plays an unassuming character like the one on NBC's sitcom, but stretches out a little here. Natalie Portman's performance as a compulsive liar is amazing. Nothing in her previous roles prepares you for how good she'll be. The situations and dialog are inventive and the characters and situations are complex. An absolutely amazing movie.

Bad Movie Poll: Battlefield Earth, Gigli, or Showgirls?

I keep promising myself I'm going to watch one of these movies to see if they're as bad as everyone says.

Gigli, the Benniffer disaster, is the most recent. Showgirls seems to be taking on some sort of cult status. Battlefield Earth is the Scientology wet dream starring John Travolta, based on the book putatively written by L. Ron Hubbard (he was long since dead when it was released). It's supposed to be unwatchable.

Which should I watch and why? For the purpose of this poll, leave out any campy movies made before 1980.

Battlestar Galactica

I'm watching the new Battlestar Galactica on the Sci-Fi channel right now, thanks to Will Collier's recommendation. So far, so good. If they develop the characters this could be a good show.

Movie: Cellular, other Jason Statham Movies

The obvious comparison is to Phone Booth. Both movies use a telephone as a life line. Phone Booth did more with the idea, and played off the psychological isolation of the phone booth better than Cellular played off the cell phones annoyance of low batteries and lousy coverage. Phone Booth also had a more powerful lead and a more intriguing villain.

On its own terms, Cellular is a pretty good big budget thriller. The big budget buys a good cast, including Kim Basinger and Willam H. Macy. Me, I like Jason Statham. Maybe it's his cool persona. Maybe it's the movies he's in. Maybe it's the male pattern baldness we share.

If you want to try other Jason Statham movies, see The Italian Job and Transporter for fun action flicks, or if you're more of a Quentin Tarantino fan rent the Guy Ritchie films Snatchand especially Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. I'd recommend those last two over Cellular.

Ritchie cast Latham in his upcoming movie, Revolver, which is in post-production.

Movie Spoilers

Kevin Keith has the First Ever Movie Spoiler Contest Prize Awards over at LeanLeft.

Confession: I could only read the first five. I hate movie spoilers, and the cringe factor just got too high for me. But it's a neat idea. The original clues, which didn't give anything away and didn't make me cringe, are here.

Movie: The Punisher

The Punisher movie is an amazing comic book action movie in a lot of ways. There's lots and lots of action, lots of comic relief, and lots of innovative stunts. Example: you've seen car chases, but how many of them involved a car with a boat trailer attached?

But man, is this movie relentlessly bloodthirsty. For a comic book movie especially, it's so brutal that kids shouldn't watch it. I won't give anything away, but one innocent character is killed as part of the Punisher's revenge. The people who made the movie understand the art of action cinema, but they're ethically lacking.

If it wasn't for the broken moral compass, this would be a better movie than Spider Man 2. As it is, SD2 is a better PG movie, but for anyone who can recognize the ethical flaws in The Punisher, it's a better R movie.

UPDATE: SPOILER ALERT IN THE COMMENTS.

Howard Jay Epstein on the Hollywood Movie Business

The WaPo reviews The Big Picture: The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood. Boxoffice receipts are inconsequential. DVD sales are what makes money, with the theatrical release being more of a marketing campaign.

Via Kevin Keith at LeanLeft. I've found a common interest with KTK: movies. Cool.

Movies to Watch

So I used to have a Palm back in the Palm III era. I got a cell phone shortly after that and decided that carrying both made me a technology victim. Ditching the Palm was an easy decision. The one thing I miss about it was the notepad feature. It meant that I always had something to write on, and one of the pages in my notepad was a list I kept of movies I wanted to rent.

Fast-forward to 2005. I'm going to try keeping those lists on my blog. There's nothing I mind anyone seeing, and publishing the list may provoke some helpful advice I would have missed out on if I had scribbled this on a Post-It Note and stuck it in my glovebox.

UPDATE: Crossed-out movies are ones that I've seen after adding them to the list.

UPDATE 2: I've joined Netflix, so I'm going to manage my movies to watch in my Netflix Queue from now on. Netflix is very cool, BTW. Without it, there'd be no way to find many of the older movies on this list.

Movies to Watch

Hickey and Boggs
The Music Room, by Satyajit Ray
Sin City
Million Dollar Baby
Batman Begins
Fantastic Four
Logan's Run
1984
MASH (believe it or not, I've never seen the movie)
Caligula
Outland
Gangster No. 1 (Malcolm McDowell)
If (Malcolm McDowell)
Showgirls, which won the Worst Movie Poll.
Battlefield Earth (runner-up in the worst movie poll)
Sunset Blvd.
All About Eve
Team America

These next movies were all recommended in the comments to this post about The Usual Suspects actors and other movies with twist endings.

The Vanishing (Dutch version)
Hero
Big Top Pee Wee
The Last of Sheila

Movies to Watch Again

Snatch
Capricorn One
Casablanca

Lists for Inspiration

Jeff Goldstein's '70s Movies Picks

Guns and Roses Fans, Go Read A Small Victory

Great post on the once-great band that was Guns and Roses. She links this expansive NY Times article about the history of the band and Chinese Democracy, Axl's unfinished white whale of a record.

The French Love Jerry Lewis and Nellie Oleson

My boyhood crush was on Laura Ingalls, but I'm starting to really like actress Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie Oleson on Little House on the Prairie. In another interview I read she said she couldn't buy a date in high school. Guys either wouldn't ask her out because she had been Nellie Oleson, or they wanted to date Nellie Oleson and it creeped her out. Here's the new interview. Interesting excerpt:

Do you think Nellie, ultimately, just needed the right person to love her? Because it seems like the episodes when a boy showed some intense interest in her that she really did become a very likeable nice person.

Well you have the whole Percival and "The Taming of The Shrew" thing…

Sure, someone that could stand up to her and still say that she was pretty.

Of course, that's what the French think, the French think that Nellie is just misunderstood. Nellie is loved in France because they don't think she's mean, they think she's French.

Yeah, "She's the most personable woman we've ever seen!"

"Yes, a lovely girl!", and they don't think there's anything wrong with her. They had a whole discussion when I was in Paris people were saying, "She's misunderstood, and she's unloved…the poor thing, don’t you see she’s just jealous of Laura!" So the French feel it was all just a crime of passion.

Hi, Steve!

Star Wars Episode III Countdown

Get ready, Star Wars fans. It's just nine more months until Episode III hits the dollar theater. There are still good spaces available on the sidewalk if you want to start camping out.

Movie: Tears of the Sun

I'm 15 minutes into this movie, and I just have to say, this is good. More later.

ATTN: Zombie Movie Fans

Moral Flexibility has an index of zombie movie reviews, plus a zombie survival manual (part 1,
part 2, and part 3). This reminds me that I need to rent Shaun of the Dead. I've heard good things, and Moral Flexibility likes it.

Via James Rummel. I link to James all the time. If you like my blog, chances are you'll like his, too.

Scene From "A Fish Called Wanda"

Otto: Don't call me stupid.
Wanda: Oh, right, to call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people. I've worn dresses with higher IQs. I've known sheep that could outwit you, but you think you're an intellectual don't you, ape?
Otto: Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes, they do Otto, they just don't understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things here. Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not 'every man for himself,' and the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.

Is there an easier job than being a drummer in an alt-country band?

Because if there is, I want that job.

Movie: Equilibrium

Equilibrium has a little bit of every sci-fi novel and movie ever written. The populace is placated with a drug called Prozium (shades of Soma in Brave New World), you can be arrested for sex crime (1984), all art is banned (Fahrenheit 451), and a messianic hero is the human race's best hope against continued oppression (The Matrix). The basic plot is that all art and sensuality has been banned on the theory that it excites the senses and leads to violence, crime, and war. The police arrest anyone who commits sense crime, and then burns their contraband.

Visually, Equilibrium owes a lot to two sources. The obvious one is The Matrix. You see the influence in the leather-clad fashions and elaborate gun-fu.

The second, less-obvious source seems to be Apple's groundbreaking, sci-fi-themed "1984" commercial, directed by Ridley Scott (Aliens, Blade Runner). You can watch the Apple commercial online at Uriah.com. Like the commercial, the movie features a droning populace enslaved by faceless storm troops and giant video screens of Big Brother. Also like the Apple commercial, a solitary, superior individual dares to destroy the man behind the curtain.

In this case the individual is John Preston (Christian Bale), a Grammaton Cleric charged with enforcing the state's laws. He begins his transformation from enforcer to rebel when he accidentally misses a dose of Prozium. As his feelings return he awakens to the sad dystopia that he helps to maintain and eventually endeavors to overthrow. His awakening doesn't go unnoticed by his colleague and rival, Brandt (Taye Diggs), who hopes to advance his career by exposing Preston.

Good stuff. For you gun nuts, see Ogre's Guns of Equilibrium. I never would have known about the movie if not for Ogre's article. IMDB's Equilibrium entry has some good discussion threads, and this piece of trivia: "Originally, the drug Prozium was named Librium (hence the term "People of Libria" as often referred to throughout the film). However, Librium turns out to be a registered trade name for the anti-anxiety drug Chlordiazepoxide." The unofficial fan site is another good resource for information and multimedia.

More Halo 2 Maps

New multiplayer maps for Halo 2 coming at the end of June. Via email from Bugly.

Cleek's Merlefest Pictures

Cleek has an illustrated account of Merlefest. I've never been but I've always wanted to go. Via Bubba.

Best Country Song EVERRR!!!!

"It's Hard To Kiss The Lips At Night (That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long)" by The Notorious Cherry Bombs. We're watching the Academy of Country Music awards right now, obviously. Melissa wanted to see if Renee Zellweger showed up with Kenny Chesney.

UPDATE: Winners here (requires Flash). Knoxville radio station WIVK won country radio station of the year. Chesney - a Luttrell, Tennessee native who went to Gibbs high school - won Entertainer of the Year. I may have to scan in pictures from the 1985 Gibbs high school annual that Melissa found. It has tons of Kenny Chesney pictures, and his autograph.

Dave Chappelle

Time magazine talks to Dave Chappelle in South Africa.

New Blog - Left of the Dial

Frank Strovel is a DJ and newscaster on a country music station in Tennessee. If country's your thing, he's got a neat blog. SUNDAY UPDATE: Link was bad. Fixed.

Just Finished Deadwood's First Season

And boy have I been cussing a lot.

"The Deadliest Catch"

Just finished watching this series on the Discovery Channel that covers the 2005 crab fishing season. Commercial crab fishing is consistenly one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. In large part that's because the boats are racing the clock to catch as much crab as they can before the fleet limit is reached and the fish and game authorities close the season.

The producers gave it a reality TV flavor by tracking the stories and catches of a half dozen boats, but the danger, tension, and sleeplessness provide the drama, while the ticking clock of the season closure drives the story. They also did a great job of illustrating the dangers of the job with stories of past disasters. They show home footage of a burning fishing boat, and two shipwrecked survivors of a vessel lost in a storm.

The producers filmed this show in the nick of time. This was the last year for derby-style crab fishing. Now the catch limits will be pre-determined for each boat before the season begins.

Why Famous Actors Make Big Bucks

One reason Hollywood may be willing to pay for famous faces is that we remember faces much better than scenery or outfits. If you don't believe it, take the Invisibles quiz at FilmWise.com. Here's a sample of a movie scene with the actor's face made invisible. You have to guess what movie this is from. Answer below the jump.

"The Hypnoscopic Weapon"

Chris Range emailed me about his latest project: an entry into the Cinema Sports 9 Hour Film Festival.

Ruth Fisher

"Thank you! I've had the best time coming to this funny restaurant and having you yell at me in the bathroom."
 -- Ruth Fisher, Six Feet Under

Rock Star: INXS

This is a good show. The songs are tons better than the ones on "American Idol" and the house band kicks ass.

James Doohan

RIP.

I didn't know he was a D-Day veteran. He took six rounds from a machine gun, one of which took off his middle finger.

Generation Repeat Goes to the Movies

This really is generation repeat.

That picture is from Bedford, New Hampshire, but we're going to a theater this afternoon in Maryville, Tennessee and six out of 12 screens are showing remakes. It would be eight if I counted Batman Begins and The Fantastic Four as remakes (I couldn't decide). It would be nine if The Dukes of Hazard were playing here. I can't remember there ever being this many remakes.

"In the criminal justice system..."

Jonah Goldbern sez:

I just heard a commercial on TV.

TNT is actually going to have "back to back" episodes of Law and Order on tonight! What a lucky break! Two episodes in a row! I mean, How often does something like that happen?

BWAHAHAHA! Melissa and I went through a heavy Law and Order period when between TNT and some other channel you could watch it like three times a night. I distinctly remember saying, "OK, that's it. Either change the channel or I'm leaving the room. I can't take any more Law and Order."

39 Questions for Charlie Daniels

Upon Hearing "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" for the First Time in 25 Years.

23. If you're Johnny, what do you even want with a golden fiddle?

24. Doesn't the metallic surface of a golden fiddle create an unpalatably tinny sound as opposed to the nice resonant sound on a wooden instrument?

25. Does he think he's going to display it in his home and tell people the story of how he beat the Devil?

26. Who's going to believe that?

Via Colby Cosh. BTW, McSweeney agrees with Uncle that the devil was the best fiddler that's ever been.

The Films of William Goldman

IGN has a recap of the films of William Goldman. I had never heard his name, but I had seen many of his movies (many of them based on novels he wrote), including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Stepford Wives, A Bridge Too Far, Marathon Man, All the President's Men, The Princess Bride, and Misery.

Urban Legend about The Wiggles?

Ticketmaster just sent me their weekly concert announcement, and one of the shows is The Wiggles in Nashville. The Wiggles is a Nickolodeon show for the pre-school set - lots of music and dancing and bright colors. Katie has watched it a few times and liked it.

So the rumor someone told me is that one of The Wiggles used to be in a punk rock band. Anyone know if it's true? Oh, please, please let it be true. It would be hilarious.

UPDATE: Steve K. has the skinny in comments. Thanks, Steve.

Movie: Serenity

Last night bloggers in Knoxville and other cities across the country were treated to an advance preview of Serenity, which opens Friday. Serenity is the followup to Joss Whedon's short-lived but wildly-acclaimed "Firefly" TV series. I had heard good things about the show, but had never seen it, so I wondered how well I'd be able to follow along. It turned out to not to be a problem. I'm sure I missed some nuances, but mostly it just seemed like the characters had a lot of backstory. Watching the movie has made me more determined to rent the "Firefly" DVDs.

The blog tie-in seems like a smart idea for the studio. They get buzz and goodwill from bloggers for the price of some free passes. I hope more studios follow Universal's example.

After the show, everyone left the theater and that was it. Next time I'd love to arrange a get-together afterwards. Glenn Reynolds (who organized the Knoxville screening) was the only blogger there I recognized, and I'd like to meet some of the other Knox bloggers.

Movie: Logan's Run (1976)

I watched the Logan's Run TV show as a kid, and watched the movie tonight in preparation for next year's remake by Bryan Singer (Usual Suspects, X-Men).

Singer can't miss improving on this movie. The original is really bad. Horrible acting, scenery, cinematography, and laughably bad FX (even for 1976).

The only Gen X fun moment is seeing an actual movie with Farah Fawcett. Remember Charlie's Angels trading cards? The ultimate was to get the one with Farah Fawcett naked, covering herself with a palm leaf. She was married to the Bionic Man, ya know.

Phil

"I'm going to raise the alert system from Blackwatch Plaid to the cover of Rush's seminal album, Moving Pictures. Hah hah! Semen."
 -- Phil, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law

Does anyone else watch Harvey Birdman? It's the Hanna-Barbara character Birdman as an earnest attorney working for a big corporation run by Phil. His clients are Hanna-Barbara characters. The quote above is from the episode when he defends Secret Squirrel from a charge of flashing. Other great episodes:

- Grape Ape's Laff-a-Lympics medal is taken away when he's suspected of steroid use
- Dr. Quest and Race Bannon have a custody battle over the boys
- Fred Flinstone as a Tony Soprano-style gangster in "Dabba Don"

"God, I love America, I love Country Music, and I hate Ed Benson."

Jack Sparks live reviewed last weekend's Country Music Association awards. Via Frank Stossel's Left of the Dial. Even if you don't give a flip about contemporary country music (and I barely do), it's a roaring, drunken, profanity-gilded rant. Sample:

Ed Benson is the greedy, Matrix-like "Architect" behind the cash grab in Nashville that has led to shameless spectacles like the one I just know I'm about to watch.

If you don't listen to "Gentle on My Mind," at least once every one or two weeks or so, you aren't human. Ed Benson doesn't, but he's an ape.

No...wait...pause. Why didn't Rascall Flatts get cut off? Alabama has sold 70 million fucking albums...billions of dollars poured into Nashville...and they got cut off...Rascall Flatts just delivered a dissertation on being stupid and talentless for like, 15 minutes and they cut off Randy Owen, who, like it or not, was the voice of Country Music for TWO FUCKING DECADES. Ed, you're really blowing it tonight. What other tricks do you have up your greasy sleeve?

Oh God. Pause. Behind her, Jack and Jackie O and Waylon and Jessie. Did anybody ask anybody about this? This might be the single most hamfisted fucking stupid thing I've ever seen during the performance of a country song ever. Ed, you're really fucking stupid. What DOES this mean? Could you explain this to me in 50 words or less? Could you do it in a hundred? This is exactly the kind of shit I'm talking about when I'm talking about shit.

Okay, here we go. Finally, Alison Krauss &Union Station plus Jerry Douglas, the best Dobro player on earth. Great Ed, your fucking monkeys in the booth fucked up her mic. Jesus Christ, pause. Hey Ed!!! You dumbass!!! The most talented performer all night just kicked off her song with a fucked up mic level. Is it that fucking hard? Who's running this show? I'm sorry Alison. I'm sorry you've graced us with your beautiful voice and talent in a genre and industry that appreciates you about as much as the porn industry appreciates a 57 year old grandmother with the clap. You deserve better than Ed and his minions of evil. You've played in bombed out shit-holes, just this side of Branson, Missouri where there was barely more than one outlet, and yet your mic was on when you started singing. Guess what? You just launched into a song on the stage of Madison Square Garden and that wasn't the case. How long, oh Lord, how long?

Nope, he definitely doesn't like Ed Benson. He doesn't much care for Kenny Chesney, Big and Rich, or the act he calls "Wham," either. Read the whole glorious thing.