December 31, 2001
Muhammed Ali is #1
First off friends welcome to 2002. Sorry about that 2001 business. Just a couple more of these and Bush'll be gone, we hope. Auld lang sine, etc. etc.
Anyway, enough holiday theme shit, let's get to the point here. If I had a most anticipated movie of last Wednesday, it woulda been ALI. Why? Because it's a movie about Muhammed Fucking Ali. To my knowledge it is the ONLY movie playing in theaters right now that is about Muhammed Fucking Ali.
I didn't know what to expect from this movie though, on account of the casting. The real Muhammed Ali already played himself in the movie THE GREATEST and in the documentary WHEN WE WERE KINGS. And why fix what ain't fucked? I didn't understand this new casting of Will Smith in the part. I gotta admit I was pretty pissed, like the nerds get whenever they cast somebody new as Superman, James Bond, Dr. Zauis or Green Aqua.
And that's what Ali is, is a super hero. Not the kind who wears a cape, although I must admit he does wear boots. Anyway I think we all agree that Muhammed Ali is one of the greatest american heroes there is. You don't even have to like sports - and I don't - to understand that Ali is what the kids call "the mothafuckin MAN." They don't make 'em like Ali anymore. In fact they never did. It was probaly some typa mistake on the assembly line. Some freak accident that only happens once or twice every thousand-thousand years.
If you don't know why Ali is the greatest, this movie might explain some of it. And you might get chills, just on account of the timely subject matter. I think there's gonna be alot of these accidentally timely movies comin along in the next few years. I don't think there has ever been or will ever be a better time in american history to release a tribute to a great american hero who's also a muslim and a conscientious objector.
I mean you know my theory of Badass juxtaposition. What could be more Badass, and more juxtapositionary, than a boxer poet? A man who mixes punching people for money with radical politics? If Dolemite was a world champion boxer AND an icon of the civil rights struggle, than he too would be Muhammed Ali. And when Dolemite doesn't even measure up to a guy, you know that guy is pretty fucking amazing.
I hope people really think about what they are watching here. You gotta be a little creeped out seeing the boxing association trying to make Ali apologize for saying "unpatriotic" things against the war, or the fbi following him around, wiretapping Malcolm X, etc. What a fucked up time it was, the movie says. Welcome back.
Seeing these scenes in a theater, right now, is pretty amazing. This movie was made at just the right time. Now, it probaly wouldn't be made. I wished the theater was full, and either everybody woulda cheered, or they woulda shrunk down in their seats.
Unfortunately the movie as a whole is not really worthy of Ali. It's not the great american epic he deserves. It's not the ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA of Muhammed Ali pictures. Sure, it's 3 hours long, but you don't feel like you got 3 hours worth of movie. You didn't learn anything. Alot of the three hours are spent on long shots of him running or of people singing. Both of these things can build a good mood, like in the long opening which switches between so-called Cassius Clay practing and some dude who's supposed to be Sam Cooke singing. The song builds and builds until it and Cassius explode at the same time. It's like an overture to the movie, instead of just opening credits.
There are touches here and there that show why Ali is such an important figure. You get some flashes of the civil rights struggle. Visions of lynching that haunt him from his youth. You get to see him with malcolm x. You see some Martin Luther King. And the climax of course is the rumble in the jungle, his triumphant trip to africa. And of course Ali's struggle to be his own man. His refusal to go to war. You even get a rousing speech, one that he never made, but one that sums up every reason why he woulda been a punk bitch to go to Vietnam. "They ain't my enemy, YOU my enemy." "No Viet Cong ever called me a nigger."
I loved seeing these things, but I didn't feel like any of them went deep enough. I didn't find out anything I didn't know. I didn't see it from a different angle. At the same time it seems like Michael Mann is trying to deflate the icon a little, for some reason.
Has there ever been a biography of a great icon, say a jazz musician, or a civil rights leader, an artist, a filmatist, etc., where the guy DIDN'T cheat on his wife? I think even Last Temptation of Christ, jesus didn't even have a wife, still they have him cheating. There could be a movie about a guy who was famous just for not cheating on his wife, there'd still be a scene of him cheating on his wife. Filmatists have it in their bones, that instinct. If you do a biography, the guy cheats on his wife. No way around it.
Yeah, like every fucking biography you ever seen, you get to see how Muhammed Ali falls for somebody else while he's married.
I know, he's human, the human side, vulnerability, blah blah blah. I don't fucking care. I'm not convinced that this shows us anything about his character, or fits the theme of the movie. It's just what they need to do. Can't make him too much of a hero, and can't make him human in a new way.
The relationships are one of the problems with this movie, and with doing a biography of anybody that had more than one gal in his life. To me, the story of Ali is not the story of every gal he ever married.
Even if you're doing a movie about some disgusting fat guy who tells bad jokes, he's probaly gonna have more than one girlfriend (or boyfriend if it's Bruce Vilanch) in his life. And it gets boring and redundant to show every one.
I mean I can understand Michael Mann's thinking. It was pretty fucked in BRUCE LEE: THE MAN, THE MYTH when halfway through the movie, Linda Lee walked in with two little blond kids and said "Hi Bruce!" and that's the first and last time you knew Bruce had a family.
But this doesn't work either. You really know the movie has biopic-itis when it ends with a little title saying that Ali divorced the woman he was with at the end of the movie, and married his mistress, and divorced her, and married someone else. I mean, of all the things that you could say about this man, is that really the most significant? Is that the last thing you want to leave us with?
On the other hand, thank god it didn't go into recent years. We all know this is a "Gimme an oscar" movie. So we narrowly avoided having Will Smith struggle with parkinson's for the last 30 minutes of the movie.
Most of the reviews you will read will hinge on whether or not this Will Smith is good enough as Ali. Shit, I don't know man. He does a pretty good job, in a way.
I read one review that says there's not one minute where you think of him as Ali, because Will Smith is Will Smith. Well I disagree. There are alot of shots where you see him from the back, and he looks alot like Ali. Or the part where Malcolm X is in the foreground, and Ali is in the background, but he's all out of focus, so for all you know he might look exactly like Ali. The only problem is whenever you can see his eyes, then you know he's Will Smith.
But I don't know. Jason Scott Leigh doesn't look anything like Bruce Lee and he still pulled it off pretty good in DRAGON. He's the totally wrong body type and nationality but when he's fighting he transforms himself somehow, changing his posture, molding himself into Bruce.
I mean, I'm not gonna say Will Smith does that. But he does the voice good. He got in good shape. Somehow he got his muscles lookin like the young Ali. He's way more convincing than I woulda thought he'd be.
The problem is, it's not good enough. Even if he was better, way better, it wouldn't be good enough. It's an impossible job. Nobody could pull it off. Because the only thing more powerful than Ali is the presence of Ali. And nobody else has that presence. In this movie, it is not present. So kids who don't know anything about the guy will probaly see the movie and have no clue why he was so mesmerizing.
Obviously the filmatists knew from the beginning that they were on shaky ground with Will Smith playing Muhammed Al fucking li. So they filled the cast with other b-list actors playing important historical figures and celebrities. For example you got Mario "My Dad Started the Independent Black Cinema, and All I Got Was a Starring Role In Every Straight to Video Movie released in the Past Five Years" Van Peebles playing Malcolm X.
I repeat. Mario Van Peebles playing Malcolm X.
Then you got the dude who played Bubba in Forrest Gump as Don King.
And what's more you got Levar Burton from Reading Rainbow, he's playing Martin Luther King, Jr.
I mean the only thing missing is Coolio as Nelson Mandela. Maybe you coulda got Urkel in there somewheres. Maybe the sound effects guy from the Police Academy pictures.
And then to confuse matters worse, you got a couple of really great actors in roles they can't do nothin with. You got Jeffrey Wright, from BASQUIAT and SHAFT 2000, playing Ali's brother. He has some lines but he mostly just takes pictures and grows his facial hair to different lengths. And Giancarlo Esposito has a small part as Ali's dad. I'm surprised they didn't give Yaphet Kotto a part as a referee.
Don't get me wrong though, all these people do pretty good. The most impressive performances is Jamie Foxx as Ali's buddy Bundini Brown, and especially Jon Voigt as Howard Cosell. It's one of those makeup roles, where they put a rubber nose on you and you do a voice and suddenly you're some other famous celebrity. But it's a good one.
I can't fault Michael Mann and friends for making this movie. Until they let us build an 800 foot statue of Ali in Washington DC, a tribute movie will have to do. And unless you're unusually sensitive about seeing young actors try to put on shoes they can't fill, it's worth seeing. I hope it gives the kids of Bush's America a new hero to consider.
And now, for archival purposes, I present to you a column I started to Write in July but never finished.
VERN TELL'S IT LIKE IT IS #60
WHY YOU MOTHERFUCKERS COULD LEARN A THING OR TWO FROM MUHAMMED ALI
By Vern - July 21st, 2001
The other day I was reading my nerd-news over on the Ain't It Cool News. If you aren't familiar with it it is where this guy from Texas Writes about how he saw all these movies. Then everybody Writes to him, and they say they are robots, etc. Then they read comic books.
Well today there was a link to something that just about made my heart skip a beat. Which isn't saying much because my internal organs and what not have seen better days. but still.
It turns out that my arch enemies at "entertainment tonight" have a web sight which has premiered the trailer for ALI, the upcoming Michael Mann movie which will either be glorious and life affirming or, sadly, the hugest fucking waste ever of a great american icon.
For those of you who don't know the story, it goes like this. Once upon a time Barry Sonnenfeld (who did the addams family movies) announced that he was going to do a movie where Will Smith (who does that fresh prince of bel air show, I believe) plays Muhammed Ali.
31 days later, the hostages were released, Sonnenfeld agreed to drop the project, and the world breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, it was over. The people had banded together and stood up for what they believed in. They had won a great victory for democracy and for Cinema.
Or had they? Quietly, the project kept developing, with a different director in mind. Sonnenfeld had retreated into his fortified bunker to read Dave Barry books. But the bizarre casting stayed intact. It seemed that Ali himself had met Will Smith and really liked him. He was training with him and insisted that only Mr. Smith could play Ali.
Many americans, including myself, were outraged. This is not some bullshit where superman's cape is the wrong length or something. If they fuck up this movie they are fucking up one of the great american outlaw heroes. This is a real super hero, and we don't want this scrawny bitch big willy playing him. He doesn't look like Ali. He doesn't have the muscle. He doesn't have the charisma. He doesn't have the presence. And he sure as fuck isn't funny. Lets not even get into the rhyming skills.
But nobody can say no to Ali, or especially to a really bad idea that might make alot of money. So Michael Mann went off and quietly made what we all hope will be a powerful epic not just about sports, but about what it means to be a man, an american, a hero.
Michael Mann is a better man for the job than Sonnenfeld. I kind of liked that movie he did, Heat. It's about how Robert Deniro and Al Pacino are in the same movie, but only in one scene together. It's also about bank robberies and huge gun fights and then Natalie Portman is in it for about three or four minutes, but kills herself because her dad is too busy chasing bank robbers to talk to her about her problems. Asshole. Leave the bank robbers alone, anyway.
But I have a duty to tell it like it is so I have to tell you that Michael Mann is one of the most overrated directors among internet nerds, right up there with that moonlighting commercial director Ridley Scott. I haven't seen the smoking movie where russell crowe wears makeup to make him look like an older, oscar nominatable type character. so maybe it's as good as they say. But Last of the Mohicans? I mean come on, boys. Let's cut the comedy here.
The legend of Michael Mann is built on the legend of Manhunter. That's the lesser known Hannibal Lecter movie, that came out before Silence of the Lambs and over the years developed a small, embarrassing cult following of people who tried to claim that since it was lesser known, it was therefore better, or at least surprisingly decent.
The truth is that it's a decent movie, but nothing special. Sort of along the lines of Silence of the Lambs. Nothing against that movie but let us give a serious quality ranking to the movies inspired by that sick fuck Ed Gein:
1. Texas Chain Saw Massacre
2. Psycho
3. Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2
4. Deranged
5. Ed Gein
6. Silence of the Lambs, Ed and His Dead Mother (tie)
Actually I've never seen that last one, but that's beside the point. The point is, there are alot of scarier, better movies about weirdo serial killers that cut off people's skin and wear it and dig up their mom, etc. And Michael Mann didn't direct any of them. Which proves my point that he is not necessarily the best director for Ali.
(?)
(Don't ask me what I'm trying to say here, your guess is as good as mine.)
So I didn't think there was a chance in hell this movie would be any good. I was looking forward to an embarrassment of biblical proportions. Like that mini-series they did where david spade had his first big dramatic role playing J. Edgar Hoover. And the guy from the 7-up commercials played Martin Luther King.
The thing that turned me around a little was when I saw in some magazine a picture of Will Smith in the movie. He's got the right hair cut, and they gave him a padded jacket and a prosthetic nose that made him actually look kinda like Ali.
And it made me wonder - what if it IS good? Is there ANY chance it will work? You see, that's how little faith I had in Michael Mann and Will Smith. I was putting all my hope in a rubber nose.
In all my rage about Will Smith's lack of dramatic, comedic and dramedy skills, I just hadn't foreseen the rubber nose factor. But yes, it turns out, he is wearing a rubber nose. So I give him credit for that.
And now that I've sort of seen the trailer, there's a new factor. I have no way of assessing the rubber nose's performance, since entertainment tonight presents it in a window so small even birds would complain if it was showing in a birdhouse. "We need a bigger tv, I can't even make this shit out. (chirp)" But Mr. Smith does a surprisingly good job of taking on Ali's voice and speech patterns.
From what I could tell, the trailer seemed to be edited together well with music and a real heroic, epic feel. I hope it will be good. I don't know if it will. But let me tell you young motherfuckers why it's important.
(For the short answer, just watch When We Were Kings, one of the greatest Badass Documentaries ever made. For the long answer, read on.
Unfortunately, that's as far as I got in this damn column. Reading this over I was expecting that I would make some prophetic type statements about a great hero standing up to america, things that would be all the more vital just a few months later when it was a whole different world, a world with no twin towers and where nobody would get be beat up for liking dragons and elves and shit.
Well I woulda Written that type of shit but I didn't finish, so just imagine what I Wrote. Thanks.
Wow, is this really my first VERN TELLS YOU WHAT'S WHAT AND DOESN'T TAKE NO FUCKING SHORTCUTS of the year 2002? Or whatever this column is called. I can't believe I've been neglecting my baby for that long. Jesus, I feel terrible. That's what they call a "deadbeat." Imagine - if instead of not Writing a column I was not fixing a broken crematory, and if instead of it being for 3 months, it was for 15 years, and instead of just not having anything here to read the end result was having hundreds of dead bodies pile up. Then this would be just like that thing in Georgia!
And that's not even close to the scariest thing going on in the news today. 300+ dead bodies piled up - that's comic relief! Just like that nurse's assistant who accidentally hit a homeless man with her car, breaking both of his legs, then (not sure what to do) parked the car in her garage, leaving him there for 2 days until he bled to death, occasionally coming in to apologize. (More on why cars suck in my upcoming unabomber manifesto length review of THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS.)
There was a time when these type of horror stories would've dominated the news for weeks. But compared to what else is going on, these are the wacky human interest stories thrown in at the end to cheer us up.
Yeah, welcome to Your Nightmare, everybody. The Unocal States of America. Alternate title: THE 1980s PART II. Where all your nightmares can come true, even before you ever thought of having them.
You want some corruption? We got your corruption. No, it doesn't stop with Enron. We got corruption in the crematories, we got corruption on the crosswalks, we got corruption on the ice rinks. We got corruption everywhere! It's our #1 export.
And while Bush and Cheney do their damndest to block any serious investigation of the criminal actions of their oil buddies, they go around pissing in the wind with phoney plans to better the world. Like that "economic stimulus package" that funnels money into the offshore bank accounts of corporations to help "stimulate the economy." Or like I just read that Bush wants $135 million to tell teenagers to abstain from sex.
Shit George, I want $135 million to tell people to stop pissin on the fuckin floor in public restrooms. But the difference between you and me is that I KNOW THAT WOULDN'T WORK.
Why not start a $135 million ad campaign to tell birds not to fly, or dogs not to sniff each other's butts? It's nature, man! Teenagers will fuck.
But see the truth is George doesn't care if it works or not. Because it doesn't really matter what the supposed issue is. He's giving $135 million to tv networks. What it really means is not "Come on kids, it's time to get serious about not getting laid" but in fact "Hey NBC Nightly News, nudge nudge nudge, be nice to me, eh?"
Because we not only got corruption, we got suspicious shit. We got Bush and Cheney telling Congress not to look too deep into what caused the terrorist attacks of last September, saying it would take their energy away from the War On Terrorism. Seriously. What on earth could they be hiding? It's probably nothing.
We got a shadow government too! Yep, you read that newspaper headline right. There wasn't time to send the airforce to intercept the hijacked planes, or to get Bush to stop reading a story about goats to grade school children, there wasn't even time to notify congress - for months - but, just hours after the attacks on the World Trade Center, they had already chosen 100 secret officials to send to an undisclosed location to become our new non-democratically elected executive branch in case the current one gets blown up. And they not only have no problem defending this, they have no problem calling it a "shadow government"!
Oh yeah, and nuclear war is back in style*! We got contingency plans and everything. We want the suicide bombers to know that if they suicide bomb us, it's their ass! Like Sun Ra says on his album Nuclear War, "Whatcha gonna do without your ass?"
Now our children who missed out on the Cold War will be able to relive the excitement of growing up feeling certain that they will all die suddenly, horribly, without warning or reason. Enough time has passed for a big budget update of The Day After - recast as a reality tv show. Tune in to find out who gets "voted off" the planet this week!
You'll find it all on the FOX NEWS NETWORK, cable tv's answer to anyone who thinks the right wing bias of the media is too subtle. No need for "Please teens, stay away from the pussy" ads on this channel. I got up early and watched them announce the oscar nominations. These people are eating microwave popcorn at 5 am and we're supposed to trust them to give us news? They criticized the nomination of Sean Penn - not because he used to be the best actor of his generation but is now lowered to playing oscar bait holy-retard roles, but because he made "anti-american" comments in an interview. Same thing for Robert Altman. One of them suggested that Altman would win as a way for the "liberal" Academy voters to make a statement against Bush.
Yeah, that's right Fox News. We're fighting for our democracy, for our freedom, for our peace. And we have chosen Gosford Park as our symbol. A symbol that cannot be mistaken. A symbol that looks like some movie about british people in funny hats walking around saying clever things to each other and getting in and out of big cars, but that nevertheless strikes fear in the hearts of the Bush regime, causing them to shrink in embarassment. I mean you can't look at Gosford Park without seeing the hypocrisy and (etc. etc.) of the American government. That's why... well, to be frankly honest I have no fucking clue why, but for some reason this movie scares the right wing kooks of the Fox News Network, whose star war reporter has vowed to do everything short of masturbate into bin Laden's skull - the mark of a true journalist!
Here's a funny story about a dude who Writes for an "Onion" type parody news sight who actually got flown in to be interviewed as a legitimate source on Fox News. That's what we need from journalists right now is fake news about a once mildly popular standup comedian. Who needs to waste time thinking through the basic premises of what we say happened on September 11th? Nobody wants to see all this unpleasant news they report on unpatriotic networks like the BBC. Why even bother investigating the insider trading that could prove who knew what would happen on September 11th? We're all tired of hearing about insider trading anyway. Enron did it, their friend George did it, he and his S&L crook brother might as well be doing it with the bills they create... who cares? We don't care that every taxpayer in California is paying $2,200 for that fake energy crisis, or that Bush pulled a Clinton by having a cover charge for sleepovers at the governor's mansion, or that the Pentagon gets so much funding that they actually managed to misplace 2.3 trillion fucking dollars, so why should we care about this? Let's move on!
I have no choice but to tell you this in each column, so here it is: we're in the shitter, people. We have never been lower. If we have the opportunity to look back at this in the history books (which is seeming less likely with every morning newspaper) these four years are going to be up there with colonial genocide and 400 years of slavery in the "proud to be an american" department.
But there's one thing the fuckers should know...
ONE MAN CAN HELP.
You read me right. There is a certain individual who you turn to in situations like this. An individual I have discussed and recommended many times before, and now I'm going to do it again.
He can't save us, but he can cheer us up. He can give us guidance. And he can remind us, cinematistically, how to stand up for what's right and step hard on what's wrong, giving it a good squooshin.
That man is Billy Jack.
That's right. Billy Jack. The half native, half pacifist, Vietnam vet turned mystic asskicker who runs the alternative "Freedom School" for guitar strumming hippie kids, stands up for American Indian issues, fights off racists, rapists, corrupt cops and CIA street fighters, goes on trial, becomes a senator and filibusters the shit out of our whole corrupt system. (That last part happens in the last, and least popular Billy Jack film, BILLY JACK GOES TO WASHINGTON which is the closest thing we have to Enron: The Movie so far. Highly recommended.)
Because of its hippie values this series is now generally considered corny. And it is. But it doesn't deserve any more scorn than any other corny action movies of the past. Dirty Harry is a better movie overall but which series paints a more accurate picture of the world you know: the one where hippies are serial killers and the only way for a cop to do the right thing is to be as brutal and unaccountable as possible? Or the one where rich people are racists, politicians are in it for the money, everyone wants to forget about the Mai Lai massacre, and cops beating up kids is a bad thing, that they get away with anyway?
Don't get me wrong, I still like Dirty Harry. But I can't stand behind those values. I'm so glad there's one action hero who makes movies about Kent State, the Mai Lai massacre, corporate ownership of our government. And I mean, where else do you ever hear about native american issues? Outside of the reservation you NEVER hear about that shit.
That's why I was glad... kinda... when I heard the announcement that Keanu Reeves was in talks to play Billy Jack in a remake.
The kinda part of course comes from the Keanu Reeves. I know that he is a 1999 Outlaw Award Winner but that was for a NONbadass in a badass role. Emphasis on the non. He has learned more kung fu than your average individual doing those Matrix movies, so hopefully that will come into play (since one of Billy Jack's trademarks is taking his boots off for some dangerous karate kicking).
The thing I worry about is that Billy Jack should be able to project some kind of intelligence. I have no idea whether or not Keanu really is smart, but he never seems like it in his movies. If he starts spouting off Billy Jack's words of wisdom it might sound like he's reading em off of fortune cookies.
The good news is that Tom Laughlin, who played Billy Jack and wrote and directed the original series, has kept tight control of the license and didn't allow people to remake it in the past. He plans to keep control of the remake and if he does we will be less likely to see a post-September-11th-izing of the politics in the movie (i.e. erasing any legitimate criticisms of our country). He still feels very strongly about these issues as you can see if you listen to the commentary tracks on any of the dvds.
They're also in good hands with Jersey Films, Danny Devito's production company. That may not sound so hot, but they did after all produce Pulp Fiction and Out of Sight so in my opinion they know what they're doing.
I don't know if this remake will ever really be made but just putting it in the entertainment news helps shine light on a neglected part of our cinematic past: the part where there really were movies coming from a "liberal" perspective, and where those movies happened to have karate in them and stoic dudes with occasional Badass oneliners. That's really what remakes are about these days anyway, is advertising the original to a new generation. I don't know anybody that saw Rollerball but I'm sure the video started to rent a little more frequently. You won't find anybody that likes the remake of Planet of the Apes better than the original. And I guarantee you if you did the research, you could prove that the Michael Caine Get Carter had more rentals during the theatrical run of the Sylvester Stallone remake than there were tickets sold.
I'm sure we'll all be able to remember where we were when we first heard the news that they were remaking Billy Jack. I was in an independent video store when a call went over the intercom - "I'd like you all know that Billy Jack will now be played by... Keanu Reeves." I wasn't sure I liked that but a few days later in the same store I heard some dude asking where the Billy Jack movies were kept, and I knew it wasn't a coincidence.
Welcome back, Billy Jack. We've been waiting for you.
*In all seriousness, I just wanna mention that a good enough reason to set off a nuclear weapon does not exist and never will, so I hope if it ever happens the citizens of the offending country will realize that it's time for some old fashioned vigilante justice. Normally I don't believe in that type of shit but seriously. If G.W. Bush, or some foreign equivalent, ever decides to devastate the world "in self defense" (whether as a first strike or a retaliation) it will be time to buy guns and take the bitch out unceremoniously. It's not worth taking everybody and everything out with you, you moron.
As a special favor to the world, I'll try to make this column a little bit less of a bummer. That means I won't get to the part about the government setting children on fire until LATER in the column. First we're gonna talk about Star Trek, Spiderman and crap like that. And I'm gonna throw in a little photojournalism.
The famous summer movie season is almost upon us. Unfortunately there's not much to look forward to here and virtually nothin in the Badass category. I think the only action movie I'm planning to see is XXX starring Vin Diesel. No, this is not pornography, although I have a growing collection of that thanks to dedicated reader Jeremiah who continues to send me free movie screeners and pornography dvds. If anyone else would like to join in this important cause drop me a line.
Anyway triple X is the latest from FAST AND THE FURIOUS directionist Rob whatsisdick, and in it Mr. Diesel plays an "extreme sports athlete" (that's what they call the snowboarding potheads from the Mountain Dew commercials) turned James Bond type special agent. So he does many stunts involving bikes, snowboards, jumping out of cars, etc. 2000 Outlaw Award Winner Samuel L. Jackson is in a supporting role with half his face burnt off, as the wisecracking boss. I hope there is one part where he yells "Triple X! I want you in my office RIGHT NOW!" and then Vin Diesel comes in on rollerblades.
This looks like the corniest crap since YAMASAKI and it could be equally entertaining.
Probaly the most anticipated movie of the summer is Spiderman, about some guy in a red bodysuit who swings around on ropes. I never understood why a spiderman would be bright red, have only two legs and be not at all hairy, but what the fuck do I know.
This one's based on comic strips I believe but alot of grown adults will be seeing it too. It's from EVIL DEAD's Sam Raimi and there is alot of talk about a Kirsten Dunst wet t-shirt shot in the ads, much in the tradition of the Catherine Zeta Jones ass shot in the ENTRAPMENT ads. All I have to say about that is come on guys, you knew her when she was a little girl! You gotta draw the line somewhere. Do as I say, not as I do. It looks like a pretty good movie for this kinda crap, though. Good luck Mr. Raimi.
Also anticipated in certain quarters is the new Star Trek picture, CLONE ATTACK 2. It's about Darth Vader's teen years, when his strict Jedi religion kept him from getting laid so he turned evil. See I told you George Bush, teenagers will fuck. If they don't, this is what happens, even in space.
There are some people so excited about this picture that they are waiting in line at a theater for 4 1/2 months just to get tickets. OR SO THEY WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE. If your town doesn't have a water skiing squirrel (and really, what kind of weather is it now to be bringing your squirrel to the beach anyway) you may have seen these dudes as a human interest story at the end of your local news. Two guys started waiting in line at Seattle's best theater, the Cinerama, claiming it was some kind of art project. They ended up on the Today Show, and some radio station sent them a stripper.
They really were doing it for a while and in a way I admired this brand of nerd fundamentalism. Obviously there are better things to be doing with 4 and a half months of your life, like protesting the various wars, working at a soup kitchen, or watching BLADE II fifty times. But they wanted to do this stupid thing, knowing that everybody in the world would think they were a fuckin jackass for doing it, and they still did it. Really, if they want to do something that doesn't hurt anybody, they should do it, regardless of what you, I, their parents, their grandparents, their future children, their friends, their neighbors, the employees of the Cinerama, the citizens of Seattle, anybody who ever heard about it, and all normal people have to say about it. It is important to stand up for what you believe in, even if it's, you know, waiting that long for a movie about yoda.
But the thing is, THEY'RE NOT WAITING ANYMORE. At some point they set up a big tent in the parking lot, with a heater, a tv, computers, and I guess probaly some old playboys or something. I thought this was cheating, like opening up your windows and calling it camping. I wanted somebody to get into the line where they used to be, and replace their "WAITING IN LINE FOR STAR WARS" banner with a "CUTTING IN LINE FOR STAR WARS" banner.
But it wouldn't even be cutting anymore, because they're not even there. Sure, they left all their shit in the parking lot. But that doesn't count. If I leave my jacket in a seat today, does that mean I get to sit there when BLADE III comes out? Come on. I mean, I live in seattle too, I'm at my house too. That doesn't count as waiting in line, it only counts as being at my house. We're doing the same thing, but I'm not taking up room in the parking lot.
So I Wrote to these dudes. Unlike me, they don't answer e-mail, instead they ask you to bring questions to the message board on their web sight. I Wrote that I was disappointed they had given up. Was it really true they were in a tent, waiting to cut in line when the REAL first person in line gets there in a few weeks? And would it be disappointing to see people line up, after the weeks they had waited before going home? But I was happy they at least could go see BLADE II, and I'm sure they could still get into opening weekend of Clone Attack, if not the very first show.
Next day I got an automated e-mail saying there was a response to my post, but the link didn't work. The message board wasn't working at all. Later I tried from a different computer. The message board worked, but the links didn't - the post, and responses, were removed. Came home, the message board still didn't work. The nerds blocked me out!
So anyway, who cares, but I just wanted to show you guys that even the local human interest stories are a lie. Here are some pictures I took yesterday.
Sorry for the widescreen style picture there but I wanted to give you an idea of how much this is not waiting in line. This is leaving all your crap behind after the church picnic. This is a special, extra nerdy way to take up 4 parking spaces in a city where parking is as precious as gas is in the Mad Max movies. I didn't poke my head all the way inside but I'm telling you, there's nobody in that tent. What you see is the Cinerama parking lot. If you stand by those dumpsters on the left, turn around and walk toward the camera about 30 feet, you get to the box office.
Here's the
box office - and a family demonstrating how waiting in line works. They were
able to get tickets to LORD OF THE RINGS without using an empty tent or van.
And yes, they are pointing and laughing.
So there you have it, even the most hardcore of Star Trek nuts don't really have the heart to be excited about their movie. Unfortunately there's not much to get revved up about in theaters this summer. I heard of one guy that wanted to see MEN IN BLACK EPISODE 2 really bad and I was pretty surprised. But BLADE II is still playing and also for any of you who like to laugh I say go see HUMAN NATURE too.
Now let's move slowly into the real world. This is a little followup to my last column where we discussed Enron a little. I'm not sure how I feel about this exactly but I was surprised to find that Maker's Mark whisky has an advertising campaign based on outrage toward Enron and Arthur Anderson. No joke! Here are the two billboards I've seen so far. Let me know if you've seen others.
So are they taking advantage of our outrage to sell us whisky, or are they using the unrecognized artistic medium of liquor billboards to send a warning to The Man that we are watching? I don't know. But if I hadn't gone clean I'd probaly be supporting this particular brand.
AND NOW FOR THE BUMMER PART.
April 19th will be the 9th anniversary of the siege at the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas. (It is also the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing [not a coincidence], the surrounding of the Warsaw ghetto, and the day before the anniversary of the Columbine massacre.)
I've seen a couple good documentaries about Waco but until this week I'd never gotten to the most famous one, WACO: RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, which won an emmy and was nominated for the best documentary feature Oscar. It's the one that proved the FBI had lied when they said there were no flame producing devices used. After the release of the movie, Janet Reno was forced to admit the devices were used and open a new (whitewashed) investigation.
This is truly a great movie, one that all americans should be required to see. Based around the congressional hearings, but also introducing what at the time was shocking new evidence, it presents numerous undeniable holes in the official story of what happened. I'd already seen the infrared footage which clearly shows numerous instances of gunfire into the "compound." But it was pretty amazing to see the letter to CBS from a group they'd had analyze the footage. They said that it showed gunfire, that it appeared to show tanks running over people, and that because of the potential damage to their company they would rather not be involved in the story.
(Fun facts: after the making of RULES OF ENGAGEMENT an infrared expert who was studying the footage suffered a stroke, and was not able to testify in court. Another expert working on the case was found dead.)
And no matter how many times I hear it I am apalled at the information that the two pieces of evidence that would be able to prove or disprove the FBI's story that the Davidians fired first on February 28th - the bullet hole ridden front door and the FBI's own video footage - were both "lost" by the FBI, not "found" to this day.
Now I am the furthest thing from a gun nut, a jesus freak, a pedophile or a right wing militia member. But I think that anybody with any familiarity with the case at all knows that our government massacred its own citizens on that day, 27 of them children. I think the gun charges and evidence were fake, I think they intentionally avoided arresting Koresh when he offered to have them search the "compound" and earlier in the day of February 28th when he went jogging. I also think it is clear that the FBI and the special forces that they had illegally working with them set the building on fire, that they shot many of the Davidians that attempted to escape, and that they lied about all this to congress and to the press.
But none of that even matters. Even if you believe every piece of the official government story of what happened, we should be outraged, demanding accountability. Because even by their own admission, they sprayed CS gas into a building that had dozens of children and elderly people in it, innocent people they saw as captive to a charismatic cult leader. It's hard to choose a most horrifying moment in RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, but one of them has to be the footage of macho boot campers after a few seconds of exposure to CS gas. Their faces are swollen, they're struggling to hold back screams of pain, they drip from their eyes, noses and mouths. The children at Waco were exposed to ten times more, for 6 hours straight.
Anyway, unpleasant as it is, I think it's the duty of all americans to acknowledge that this kind of thing happens and to look for a way prevent it from happening again. This April 19th please take a look at RULES OF ENGAGEMENT or WACO: A NEW REVELATION. There is also alot of useful information at the official W:ROE web sight http://www.waco93.com.
I wonder what the Maker's Mark advertisers could've done with Waco?
Anyway, have a good one guys.
--Vern