Hulk Like Me

It turns out the problem with the two Hulk movies wasn't the CGI Hulks - because the one in the new Avengers movie is not significantly better than the one in the second Hulk movie - but the actors playing Dr. Bruce Banner. Mark Ruffalo wears the tortured soul of the good doctor as he brings a vulnerability, a fragile, bruised humanity to the character that has been missing since Bill Bixby played David Bruce Banner. He so inhabits the character that when Banner and Stark are going I.Q. to I.Q. on the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, you believe in his prodigious intellect and his overweening humanity, in way you wouldn't if the character had been played by one Eric Bana or one Edward Norton.

Wild Things

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Where the Wild Things Are author Maurice Sendak dead at 83. I used to read Where the Wild Things Are to my daughter (who is now 20) every night. She'd giggle every time I told her in my monster voice, "I could eat you up I love you so!" and every night we would conclude the book with me asking softly, "and who loved him most of all?" "His mommy," she would say before kissing me on my forehead and falling off to sleep. ~rave!

Ballin' too hard

So I ball so hard muhfuckas wanna fine me 
But first niggas gotta find me

What's 50 grand to a muhfuka like me

Can you please remind me?

Ball so hard This shit crazy

~Kanye West, "Niggas in Paris"

Okay, Kanye, you win.  I recant everything I have ever suggested
about your being gay ("not that there's anything wrong with that").
Just please, please, PLEASE!!!! stop this Kim Kardashian nonsense.


I don't believe this relationship is any more real than your "relationship" with Shay the UK Bombshell

Or your "relationship" with Amber Rose

(why does Kanye always look like he was photo-shopped into these pictures)

But those publicity stunts were relatively harmless.  Ms. Rose went on to play wifey with Wiz Khalifa and the Bombshell carried on being ridiculously endowed.


This Kardashian business, however, is toxic (holler at your boy, Lamar; give Kris Humphries a jingle).  Nothing good will come out of it.  Nothing good CAN come out of it.  I mean, have you SEEN her sex video (with Ray J)?  I have.  So believe me when I tell you that even if I am willing to concede your non-gayness (and I AM, truly I am) not even the sex will be good.

Nothing good has ever come from putting three Ks together.  

If, like noted cockhound Tom Cruise, you must persist in trawling for talent, trawl for TALENT.  

I hear Rihanna likes to play.

Or how about actress Lauren London 

(oh, no, wait...Weezy has already been there - done that)

Duane Wade has locked up Gabrielle Union...

 but it is my understanding that Meagan Good is still available.

And Tyra Banks is still Tyra Banks (fool!). 

'cept publicly dating Tyra Banks is damn near like ADMITTING YOU ARE GAY ("not that anything is wrong with that").

This shit crazy.

Black like Me

I am often amused by the comedy stylings of conservative apologist Jonah Goldberg (http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/27/opinion/la-oe-goldberg-trayvon-martin-race-20120327),
but his ham-fisted attack on the phrase "white hispanic" borders on willful cluelessness.

Back in the last millennium a white supervisor asked me what was the difference between a white Hispanic and a black Hispanic and I replied: What is the difference between a white American and a black American?

It is that simple and nobody needs a score card to figure it out. Anybody that has seen a telenovela on Univision or Sophia Vergara on "Modern Family" knows what a white Hispanic looks like.  Anybody who has watched Major League baseball and has rooted for Mariano Rivera or Alfonso Soriano knows what a black Hispanic looks like.

If you can move into a predominantly white neighborhood and nobody moves out, you are a white Hispanic.  If baseball has been "berry, berry good to you" you are a black Hispanic.

First of all, Mr. Goldberg, it has nothing to do with whether or not one of your parents is white.  So, no, President Obama is NOT a white African-American.  If Mr. Obama was, in fact, a white African-American and looked like your brother-from-another-mother instead of "the other," he would be currently hailed as the new Ronald Reagan for his moderate Republican policies and not vilified as a wild-eyed radical.

~rave!

Bite Me

Has Toby Whithouse, head writer and chief cook and
bottle washer of Being Human, added to werewolf/
vampire lore?  I was struck by two seemingly new twists:

1) werewolf blood is like a stake through the heart for 

vampires (geez louise, wouldn't this knowledge have been 

valuable to poor, sad-sack George - Russell Tovey - two, 

three seasons ago?  I mean, vampires were practically taping 

"kick me" signs to his back when they weren't kicking 

sand in his face) and (2) vampirism is like drug or sex 

addiction - you can beat it if you have enough will power 

and try really, really hard.

New vampire-in-residence, Hal (Damien Molony), isn't 

feeding on humans but unlike, say Edward, from Twilight, 

who feeds on small, furry forest creatures or Vampire Bill, 

from True Blood, who quenches his thirst with synthetic 

human brew, Hal doesn't seem to need to ingest any bodily 

fluids.

Now the werewolf blood thing - well, I guess it would be 

awful hard to extract blood from a werewolf (for the express 

purpose of killing vampires).  For one thing, you can only 

harvest once every full moon and werewolves are just plain 

frickin' mean and onery until they transition back to human.  

If you kill 'em they would probably transition back to human, 

and, if you knocked 'em down with a tranquilizer gun they
would probably transition before you could "milk" them.

Still, werewolf blood kills vampires.  Who knew? (Or did 

werewolves overcome and nobody told me?)

~rave!

THX and Don Pedro Colley Superstar

I purchased a copy of George Lucas' redigitized "directors' cut"
of THX-1138 for Christmas.

It is a fascinating time capsule but way more work than I am
inclined to invest in most cinematic offerings. Frankly, I fell
asleep during the first viewing which was akin to watching
Shakespeare performed by mimes. I employed the directors'
commentary option for my second viewing, which was like
watching a foreign movie with subtitles. Lucas admits that he
wanted THX-1138 to look and feel like a movie not only from the
future but from another country using another film language. On
this point he succeeds masterfully.

Watching THX-1138 is initially a disconcerting experience as
pictures and the audio often do not match. Sometimes you hear
a sound for which there is no visual cue and vice versa.
Apparently, Lucas edited the film and his collaborator Walter
Murch edited the "sound montage" in the same room at the
same time but working separately, then Lucas would re-edit his
film to capture the sound and Murch would remaster his sound
to "match" Lucas' visuals. It takes a bit of getting used to. I can't
even imagine how disconcerting it would have been in 1971
without the subtext of the internet and one hundred and fifty cable
channels to orient you. The remastering with THX Dolby sound
is sumptuous.

THX-1138 originally cost one million dollars. By comparison
"Beneath the Planet of the Apes," made at approximately the
same time, cost six million. Lucas managed to get all of his
money on the screen by use of some fortuitous circumstances.
Filming in the San Francisco area turned out to be among the
most fortunate. Lucas was able to use the finished by not yet in
commission tunnels of the BART subway system and a regional
AT&T switching station that was still functional but about to be
decommissioned, as AT&T prepared to switch from rotary dial
service to touch tone service, as sets. Also, Lucas was able to
satisfy his need for hundreds of bald-headed extras by using
members of San Francisco based Synanon, a AA type self-help
organization for drug addicts that morphed into a religious cult.
Synanon required all of its members to shave their heads.

For all of the refurbishing and remixing, THX-1138 never quite
sheds its origin as a student film. The humor that Lucas and
Murch speak of in their commentary is so "dry" and film student
insular that you would not know anything funny was going on if
they didn't point it out to you. Also there is a mishmash of "big"
ideas that must have seemed bigger while on campus at USC.
It must have been hilarious in late 1960s and early 1970s to
create a society where the government would jail you for NOT
using drugs.

Still, many aspects of the THX-1138 paradigm are startlingly
prescient. THX-1138 (Robert Duvall) works at an extremely
dangerous robotics factory (one of golden robot torsos looks
startlingly like a precursor of C-3PO) where the workers are
routinely drugged to steel their nerves and to steady their hands.
Still there are tragic accidents - Duvall's unit is commended for
only having a 158 casualties. A cog in a consumerist society,
Duvall stops on his way home to make an obligatory purchase
and to stop at a prayer kiosk.

THX-1138 lives with his roommate LUH-3417 (Maggie McOmie).
On first viewing it appeared he was trying to hide his purchase (a
red diamond-shaped carton) from his roomie when, in fact, he
was doing an obligatory discard so he could purchase the same
thing again the next day. Murch explains that THX and LUH are
pronounced phonetically as "sex" and "love," and that is the
crime these two state-sanctioned platonic roommates are guilty
of -- being in love and having unsanctioned sex (not to mention
not taking their drugs which allows them to break the laws
against having sex and making love).

After work and his obligatory consumer and spiritual
consumption, Duvall vegetates in front of the holograph
projector, channel-surfing through the offerings that consist of
soft porn, sadistic violence and insipid sitcoms. The soft porn
channel features fetishistic naked nubians while the comedy
channel looks like "Amos and Andy in the 21st Centry." The
channel Lucas dubs "the Rodney King Channel" features a
robotic policeman repeatedly beating a defenseless citizen with
his nightstick. This is the channel the anethesized Duvall
returns to repeatedly before settling in to watch it.

SEN 5241 (Donald Pleasance) is the serpent in the garden
(SEN=Sin) except he doesn't tempt the couple until after he
witnesses them having sex. Pleasance develops a lust for
McOmie and plots to get her as his roommate. His actions and
Duvall's undrugged reactions lead to all three of them going on
trial. Duvall and Pleasance end up in state prison, a white-
washed void with no walls, ceilings, windows or doors. Duvall
eventually discovers that if you "free your mind, your ass will
follow."

Enter the "Magical Negro."

Like Punjab the genie from "Little Orphan Annie," SRT, the
hologram appears. SRT (Don Pedro Colley) is like something
out of Stephen King. He is out-sized, bald-headed, "magical"
and loves him some white folks. He shows Duvall and
Pleasance the way out of the void and back into the "free" world.
For some reason Colley is a surprisingly clunky "hologram." He
can be seen; he can't walk through walls; he can't drive a
souped up rocket car (but, not so surprisingly, Duvall can). Still,
Colley is an arresting presence. Such an arresting presence
that it is surprising his acting credits are as scant as they are (he
played "Negro" in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" and Sheriff
Ed Little from Chickasaw County on "The Dukes of Hazzard").
With his height, stature and baritone voice, it is surprising Lucas
didn't think of him when casting Darth Vader.

THX-1130 lives in an orderly society and when the cost of
pursuing him exceeds by 20% the amount the state allows for
recapturing escapees the search is called off. And that is the
way the movie THX-1130 is - ending, perhaps, when the money
ran out. The actual ending is one that may have been shocking
when the movie was made but has become almost cliche thirty
odd years later.

Some interesting themes in the movie that hold resonance
today: in THX-1138 there is no evil empire or cabal. The Society
is the villian, but it is a suprisingly benign one (As Walt Kelly in
the guise of Pogo says, "I have seen the enemy, and he is us").
The police-robots are unfailingly polite and the state prison can
be walked away from if only one has the imagination and the will
to do so.

~rave!

Program of Interest

Person of Interest is a mashup of The Bourne Identity and Minority Report brought to you by the co-writer of The Dark Knight. I am not a Jim Caviezel fan but it appears he was born to play two roles: "The Christ" in The Passion of... and ex-CIA hitman, John Reese. Whereas the erstwhile Jason Bourne can't remember anything, poor John Reese knows what he was; what he did; and only wants to forget about it.

When we are introduced to Mr. Reese, he is a bearded bum about to be accosted by a gang of obnoxious prep school boys (is that an oxymoron?). Tit leads to tat and Mr. Reese is taken into custody after dispatching the Breakfast Club with extreme prejudice.

Watching the surveillance video from the subway car, Detective Carter (Taraji P. Henson) suspects there is more to the bearded bum than meets the eye. Using the old fingerprints on the glass trick, she runs his prints but before she can get a hit, Reese has been sprung by the enigmatic Fitch (Michael Emerson).

Mr. Fitch is a billionaire inventor who has created the perfect all-invasive, all-knowing, all-seeing, post 9-11, super-surveillance network - except, after selling it to the government, he only has "backdoor" access to it, and to conceal his backdoor access, he can only extract social security numbers - or something. Anyhoo, he is able to determine that a crime is about to occur only not when or (apparently) to whom. All Fitch is able to do is determine a "person of interest." He needs someone to connect the dots and slowly convinces Mr. Reese to become his highly skilled blunt instrument.

The set-up set, Person of Interest moves jauntily along with periodic bursts of brutal, well choreographed action, competently sold by the loose-limbed Caviezel, mixed with a healthy dose of social paranoia.

If the notion of Big Brother constantly watching everything you do doesn't chill you to your bones, Person of Interest may be the show for you.

~rave!