The Blood of Puppets

We live in a strange time. Not since the industrial revolution has the nation faced such awkward growing pains. Telecommunications are globalizing world cultures. Big business is becoming invested on a macro-scale. Our democracy is becoming our fake democracy. The most important and frustrating transition, however, is the shift from old-fashioned puppetry to the new world of CGI and digital special effects.

People still love the Fraggles and fear the C.H.U.D.S of yesteryear. There may always be a place in our heart for both of them. I doubt many people even remember the digital, giant-eared space moppet from the big screen Lost In Space, much less scared by the computer generated spooks of newer horror films like Resident Evil.

It used to be that if a movie maker wanted to put a flesh-eating critter that looked suspiciously like a Gremlin in a film, he’d hire somebody to sew a rubber puppet together, lower the lights, and shoot. Nowadays, they hire someone to scan in a picture of whatever crazy thing they can imagine and somehow paste that picture into a film using Photoshop. This is a problem, a problem summarized by one rule of thumb: a Graboid beats an Assblaster any day of the week. In other words, the large worms, or Graboids, of 1990’s Tremors that were accomplished with real models and trick photography looked much better than the digital beasties, called Assblasters, of 2001’s Tremors 3.

The wet tangibility of fake blood or the presence of a guy in a zombie costume still produces a more visceral reaction than the slick, pasted feel of today’s computer hokum. I believe this is made the most apparent by tracking the career of actress Jennifer Connelly.

Her second movie was Phenomena, an Italian horror picture most noticeable for its homicidal monkey. A teenaged Jennifer had the ability to control insects with her mind, an effect created by using a pen to make dots on the actual celluloid, simulating a swarm of flies. It was crude, but the movie was fun, low-fi bedlam.

Her next movie, a crowning achievement by puppet master Jim Henson, was the remarkable Labyrinth. She spent most of her time on screen with a troll named Hoggle wandering through a maze filled with amazing creatures cooked up at Henson Studios. Much like Sesame Street or Star Wars, it still resonates with adults today, who can often be heard reciting memorable quotes like “Goblin King! Goblin King!” or discussing why David Bowie’s cod piece was so big.

Connelly later starred in Inventing the Abbots and The Hot Spot, two great films- one because of its east coast melodramatic, nostalgia, the other for its noir-ish heat. To my knowledge, there were no special effects in these films, digital or otherwise. However, she appeared topless in both of them.

In between those two, she appeared in The Rocketeer, co-starring with Billy Campbell. I am fairly certain Billy Campbell is a robot. To make him appear not overly robotic, I think they enhanced his human features later using CGI. As a result, The Rocketeer was an average film.

Most recently, Jennifer starred in Hulk, a bombastic, wall-to-wall spectacle of techno-effects. Director Ang Lee was visually successful in making the best moving comic book yet. The actors were more than adequate. The movie lacked heart, though, largely because the Hulk came across as an unrealistic, bouncing mammoth and left much of the audience wondering why Lou Ferrigno on a pogo stick wouldn’t have done just as good a job.

As you can see below, the quality of Jennifer Connelly’s body of work can be defined by a nonsensical line graph that plots the amount of digital effects versus real effects (while taking into account nudity) in her movies. Labyrinth wins out over the Hulk by a large margin.

I realize that things take time to perfect and digital effects will need time mature. Rome was not built in a day. I just wish I did not have to live in Rome with all the construction going on. I wish they’d kept releasing flicks with goofy puppets and plastic monsters, all the while making the “pixar-ated” version of the same movie simultaneously, but only putting that version on the DVD for curious fans. Only after perfecting the art of computer generated images should Hollywood start releasing movies that included them into the theaters. Instead, we have the blood of so many prematurely retired puppets on our hands.

Nonetheless, I believe the creature features of today will soon reach a plateau of acceptability. Then, and only then, will I finally be able to start complaining that you can’t tell what is real and what is fake anymore and how, back in the day, the Hulk was the perfect instance of digital dazzle comforting us with his artificial charm.

Dead Again

An invisible car. This is the best gadget the new Bond movie can give us. This would probably be a tired gimmick 20 years ago. Just to make sure it’s boring today, though, the car is also equipped with the standby missiles and ejector seat. To say this franchise is in the middle of an identity crisis would be kind. It is pathetically old. This is made especially clear during the title sequence, when the only thing more ridiculous than a geriatric Pierce Brosnan being agonized in a scorpion torture prison is that it’s being done to the pulsating techno-bleats of a Madonna song (she’s old too). What is actually more ridiculous than both is that the only detrimental effect after 14 months of water torture, starvation, daily poisonings, and Madonna’s music is that James Bond has long, ratty hair.

There are so many criticisms to be made about this movie; it’s quite hard to be precise. From the opening moments of the film, for instance, it was obvious I would have to keep a tally of shoddy dialogue if I wanted to remember how much there was. So, I began to count lame lines, but early on when Bond jumped from an out-of-control hovercraft onto a bell just before the vehicle shot off a cliff and he announced he was, “Saved by the bell!” my pencil shattered from the pressure of my clenched fist. What was worse, the wisecrack or the action that preceded it?

The writers, apparently full of energy from the lack of effort put into the film’s dialogue, did actually work a bit of foreshadowing and parallel structure into that “hovercraft scene”. The main villain was on that hovercraft and Bond thinks he is dead (he’s not). Later, Bond flies over a snow cliff and the villain thinks Bond is dead. But Bond, of course, hangs off the ocean-side of the mountain fashioning a parachute and surf board from pieces of a car. When the avalanche hits, he surfs his way out of danger before launching himself off a wave and floating onto safe ground. As far as avalanche-themed stunts go, this makes Vin Diesel’s snowboard race in xXx downright likely.

That bit of foreshadowing, if it was even intended, is the best thing to be said about the storyline. 007’s chief enemies in Die Another Die are the North Koreans. The producers probably thought this would be a prescient move to reflect America’s next political boogeyman. I guess they didn’t count on us crippling a Middle Eastern state with sanctions and bombings to the point of almost complete exposure before invading them on the nightly news. It is hard to believe they didn’t foresee this, as the path to box office success for this movie must have been similarly predicated on a weak, hampered field of films that the majority of the public didn’t really care about. How else could they expect us to sit through a scene of Halle Berry strapped to a table, about to be diced by a laser beam? This was much more suspenseful when Hank Scorpio did it on the fourth season of the Simpsons. This says nothing of when the arch-villain puts on something that looks like a Nintendo Power Glove to transmit lightning bolts through people.

The actors don’t fare any better. Halle Berry seems to be as untalented as many have suspected, delivering her lines with all the flat-footed grace of a syndicated starlet. A graying Brosnan, as mentioned, looks aged and uninterested.

If you see this in the video store, my recommendation is for you to pick it up unprompted and shout “Die another day? I think I’ll watch it some other day! ” and throw it down. The iota of amusement this may arouse within anybody who notices you will surely surpass the cumulative enjoyment of everyone who’s actually seen the movie.

On an inverse scale of the worst movies ever made, where Crocodile 2: Death Swamp rates a 1 (still kind of campy), and Patch Adams rates a 10 (worst ever), Die Another Day actually replaces Josie and the Pussycats, the numerical equivalent of a 9.1.

Mailbag

I always wondered how open letters worked: If the person it was written to was just supposed to find it, or if was sent to him. Now I know. Or you’re just a really polite open letter writer. Either way, I enjoyed it. And the site, which was new to me.

Thanks,
Joel

Ed. Note: Joel Stein is responding to an open letter written for him in issue 4. He is a writer for Time and Entertainment Weekly. He is also one of the talking heads on VH1′s “I Love the80′s”. Less impressively, he can currently be seen hosting Reel Comedy: Dumb & Dumberer on Comedy Central. More impressively, he makes fun of the stars, Derek and Eric, in his latest EW column.

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Let’s face it, your comment about those “crazy ass riggers” in your “retro review” of the movie Armageddon was a little too close to another word that chaps my black hide. There was actually only one – Michael Clark Duncan. He had to be crazy to go into outer space to dump a nuclear weapon into an asteroid, because let’s just face it, black people don’t do that shit.

The director (and writer for that matter) only let the true image of the black man show through once when they portrayed him as a sexual beast who danced on an examination table in cheetah bikini underwear. “Mmm, mmm, good”, I am sure the audience was saying, “even in the face of death, he still wants to shake his money-maker and give the public a glimpse of exactly why once you go black, you never go back”.

Still unrealistic? Yes, because if it was real, he would have run off to join a black male, stripper revue featured on Real Sex 21 and been the last person on Earth to board a space ship and fly to his most likely death. Black people boarding a space craft of any kind is an innately avoided adventure (see: Star Trek, et. all). While I commend your efforts in trying to bring forth what you believe is the meat of the story line, let’s keep it real. It was yet another story of The Man tryin’ to keep a brotha down.

Keepin’ It Real in AZ.

Ed. Note: We stand by our review that Armageddon is terrible for many reasons not limited to it’s portrayal of African-Americans.

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Panty Crimes

To exist as a peaceful society, we must abide by a social contract, a set of rules which will defend and protect the whole common force, the person and goods of each associate, but in which each person, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before. These rules, apparently, are established by day time talk programs, the Maury Povich and John Walsh shows, especially. One rule they championship regularly is that it is wrong to look up women’s skirts with video cameras. The social contract won’t permit the practice as a tolerable activity within the framework of public good and the body politic, or in their words, “Peeking Perverts… Busted!”

There’s a curious amount of raw up-skirt footage displayed on those shows, ostensibly meant to dissuade us. Still, I wonder who among us, while standing in line at the bank staring at our feet, hasn’t wondered how much money and time it would take to mount a tiny camera inside one of our shoes? Or at the bottom of a fake walking cane? Regardless, I am more than willing to agree to be against the practice for inclusion in our sovereign state. I like this society, especially the American restaurants… there’s just so much bread!

Then, I made the mistake of reading US Magazine and Mademoiselle, two mainstream publications who are supposed to maintain the minimum level of morality of our social contract. But in US, they now have a “wedgy” section. It is near the “They’re Just Like Us…” section which shows how celebrities are “just like us” by publishing photos of Demi Moore or Sheryl Crow when they come down the hill to pick up their laundry or eat a bag of potato chips. Some of the photographers’ film roll, on such occasions, apparently just happened to contain a few shots of them adjusting their underwear.

In Mademoiselle, they print of photos of celebs bending over to reveal their thong. I found the two adjacent shots from upskirtsurprise.com while taking their “free tour”. This site, and many like them, are often disparaged as repulsive, pornographic, violating, and, at times, illegal, but these pictures are exactly like ones in the aforementioned publications.

I wish I could show you how similar the shots from the magazines are. Unfortunately, I was standing in a Wal-Mart reading them. The only thing worse than standing in a Wal-Mart reading Mademoiselle is standing in a Wal-Mart in the first place. It would have meant days of self-flagellation if I actually walked up to the counter and explained how I “just needed to buy something to get cash-back”. (By the way, I said flagell-ation)

In some respects, the celeb pictures are even worse since the famous people are bound to know about it. Anonymous victims of the skirt stalker-azzi probably won’t find out about it unless they visit illicit “voyeur” websites. Occasionally, a co-worker may find the snapshots and post them on the workroom bulletin board. But quitting, often the case for many problems, is an easily available recourse. What’s a celebrity to do? Quit being a celebrity? I don’t think they are enough “like us” to survive that.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about this, mostly the hypothetical “shoe camera” issue. But after that, I am left to wonder if I really want to live among a society where it is commonly agreed upon that websites like www.mission-upskirt.com are as OK as www.apple-pie.com and www.baseball.com. Even for panty-pic advocates, I have to imagine the loss of its taboo nature would be frustrating. I have come to the conclusion that our social contract still holds dear the right of a woman to walk down a street without worrying about a camera hidden in the sidewalk (though I wonder, how much would a sidewalk-camera cost?). Ultimately, the only things that may have changed are that US Magazine and Mademoiselle are gratuitous and insulting. And since I had never read them before, this has probably always been the case.

Kevin’s Monkey of the Week

My name is Kevin Shaughnessy, and I love monkeys. Curious George is likely a primate of the Capuchin species, often called a “cotton monkey” in the old south. I’ve loved Curious George over the years for many different reasons. As a child, I loved his playfulness. As a teenager, I must admit, I appreciated his rebellious antics. In college, I became curious, too… about careers! (It took me a long time to choose my major). Now, I like George mostly because of the money market philosophy hidden in the subtext of his adventures… I just hope none of my clients are reading this! Also, the man in the yellow hat could be prosecuted under the animal cruelty acts of over half the contiguous states. My name is Kevin Shaughnessy, and I love monkeys.

The End of the World as We Know It

In a series of promotional posters for the film Armageddon, mug shots of our promised heroes were underscored with a bit of information about each. Bear, for instance- he was doing it for the thrill! Truman was doing it for his country, Steve Buscemi was doing it for the money, and Grace was doing it for love. A.J., well, he was doing it for her. At least, that’s what I thought until saw another A.J. poster asserting that he was in it for the thrill, too. I was panicked by the unforeseen ambiguity in these people’s motivation. Wasn’t Bear the adrenaline junkie? Or did A.J. have more than one dimension? Would the movie be as confusing as these posters?

In some ways, like the direction, it was more so. Even by director Michael Bay’s standards (Bad Boys, The Rock), the action sequences were hyperactive, muddled spectacles drowned out by an equally addling soundtrack of endless explosions. However, the farfetched action of Armageddon was easily matched in slack and tedium by the plot.

It revolved around a crew of roughneck oilers whom we first met as the boss man Harry (who was doing it for the honor) chased A.J. around the rig with a shotgun. Man, those were some crazy-ass riggers! That’s about the some total of what was important to know about them.

The story line was a familiar one for the modern day blockbuster about things of a large size. Ominous opening scenes made us aware of a threat. Then the military got involved by hiding information from the public. Soon, specialists were brought in. This is where the drillers came in to play, for they were the only ones who can stop a “rouge comet” headed directly for Earth by inserting a nuclear device into its core. A nuclear device? Yes, there was a scene where someone has to guess between differently colored wires to defuse the weapon.

As the film progressed, they faced an absurd parade of obstacles to their goal, including a nasty case of “space dementia”. The only real surprise was that a furry Meteor Beast was not piloting the asteroid. The astro-drillers overcame these hurdles with methods that were, even in terms of astro-drilling movies, unbelievable but fun to count. I tallied thirty-four.

Armageddon failed to engage the viewer in any meaningful way as the potential for emotional involvement was crested by a brassy Ben Affleck stating with a grin that he “feels pretty good for being more scared than he’s ever been”. Meanwhile, Bay couldn’t manage to keep the camera still unless he was displaying a huge American flag in the background.

The irony of such a patriotic movie was that it could only inspire hatred for a country where such a movie is made. For me, though, it did inspire one question. Why wasn’t there a poster for the bleached-blond Oscar? I think he did it because he was a surfer or something, but I’d like to know for sure.

AN OPEN LETTER TO JOEL STEIN

About a year ago I made mix-CD composed of songs about the moon. Almost all of them had the word “moon” featured prominently in the title or chorus. I’d also like to think that an underlying theme of celestial mystery ran throughout the CD (except, maybe, for the 4 minutes of “Rodeo Moon” by Toby Keith). I even downloaded a picture of the moon from someplace called www.moonsociety.org (apparently devoted to colonization) and put it in on the cover along with the title “Tune River”. But a day after sending the CD, I was eating dinner when I realized I’d forgotten an essential song by neo-folkie Josh Ritter! Convinced I would never forgive myself, I smashed a plate and screamed, “I don’t care what you will say in an article a year from now Joel Stein, mixing CDs is my art and I will never give up!”

A year later, Joel Stein wrote an article for Entertainment Weekly declaring that custom mix CDs were just about “trying to look cool” and that even good mixes were “inherently evil”. He said he was fed up with all the custom mix CDs he was getting from friends for holidays. Respectfully, maybe it is Joel’s choice of friends he should be disgusted with, not with this new age of musical liberality. If his friends are, as he says, just “dragging MP3s from column A to column B”, then he certainly has a right to be sickened. I don’t know what software they’re using, but I sure as hell don’t use dragging or columns, much less the inferior-quality of MP3s. I’m guessing that if these friends of his were to make a moon CD, it would consist largely of Pink Floyd, REM, and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

A great mix CD should introduce the listener to new music but with something slightly familiar mixed in. Just not “Bad Moon Rising” or “Man on the Moon” familiar. Let me say something about a CD I would make for Joel Stein, ignoring for the moment the homo-erotic subtext of such an activity. I would start him off with something he’s never heard before, something spry but cynical, just like Joel. I would sprinkle the middle with an odds-n-sods mix of indie-rock and almost-forgotten 70’s hits, plus just one traditional jazz song just to make him wonder. Then, I would finish him off with a rousing number by Alien Ant Farm, because I hear they really rock, and I want Joel’s last memory of my CD to be “My belief in mix CDs is restored and I’m sorry I… I can’t think anymore, I’m too busy rocking!”

It is true that the nature of music has changed. People used to associate the music on a record with the art on its jacket and the feel of the bean bag while they were hearing it. People used to associate the music on a CD, even, with the art in its booklet and all the trouble it took to peel off the little silver tab when trying to get it open for the first time. Now, it is likely many people would only associate “Missundaztood” by Pink with the “Gym Workout” playlist on their iPod. I say, embrace this new age of portability and ease, but educate yourself on the nuances of mish-mash, custom song collections before going crazy with the new found power.

Personally, I would love for someone to give me a mix CD for any holiday. Unless, of course, it’s all I get from that person, in which case, they can stuff their cheap present where the sun don’t shine, and I’m not talking about the dark side of the moon.

Kevin’s Monkey of the Week

My name is Kevin Shaughnessy, and I love monkeys. The fun-loving monkeys in a recent ad for Sierra Mist soda are Patas monkeys of the Erythrocebus genus. While they do love fun (and eating grubs) it is unlikely they would now how to build a catapult device. Furthermore, if they did know how, I doubt they would launch themselves into a cold lake. In their native desert habitat, they have shown a severe dislike for flying. Also, in the late 50′s, a group of zoo Patas monkeys, usally known for their passive nature, got free from their cages and attacked the polar bears. My name is Kevin Shaughnessy, and I love monkeys.

The Creek Season Finale

In the season finale of Dawson’s Creek, it is the future and Dawson Leery is in Hollywood producing a The Creek, a show based on his life on Dawson’s Creek. Oh, the mind boggling convolutions of the show-within-a-show.

I wished I lived in the universe of the WB. In that world, The Creek is only getting started, its first season coming to a successful end, many heart-wrenching seasons still ahead. Also in that world, regular dads look like Treat Williams and a town called Gilmore is full of hot daughters and liberal moms dating new guys every week (I think that’s what the show is about, anyway.)

Instead, I’m stuck in this world where Pacey gets the girl. But in that world, there is still hope for Colby and Sam on The Creek, while the notion of Peety horning in on the action is not even a consideration. I’ve always thought of myself as a Dawson/Colby (depending on the universe I’m in) except without the ambition, good looks, or ability to lose my virginity before the age of 29. Such as it is, it pains me to see Pacey, the aloof, trouble-making, teacher-sleeping, yacht-deckhand bad-boy win Joey.

Plus, if I lived in the WB but was somehow still had the knowledge of the real world, I could not only enjoy The Creek, but hunt down Pacey in New York and kill him in a “random” mugging, then win over Joey because I would naturally be much cuter in the WB world just like everybody else.

Even better, since James Van Der Beek would not be an actor in this world, just a television writer for a low-rated series, the movie Varsity Blues would not exist, or it would exist with Marc Blucas as the star, either of which is preferable. Speaking of Marc Blucas, Buffy’s old boyfriend, I also have a few thoughts about life in the UPN universe, but I’ll save that for later.

Magnolia Makes Electric Company

Possible-Best-Album-of-the-Year-Red-Alerts, unlike most red alerts, must come several months after the release that triggers the red alert. After all, it takes time to judge the true quality of record. Will an album that initially overwhelms you with rock bravado maintain its fiery bluster over time, or will it burn out before the smoke clears? Will an album making a weak start out of the gates continue its slide, or will it begin to percolate like a rich cup of coffee that gets magically sweeter after sitting in the pot for a few months? I cannot remember the last time I listened to Beck’s Sea Change, hailed by Rolling Stone as an “an impeccable album of truth and light from the end of love”. On the other hand, I’ve been happily listening to Neil Halstead’s Sleeping on Roads a lot lately, which I, myself, originally described as “an inexcusable piece of shit I will likely never listen to again by a mediocre artist blindly flailing into a solo career he neither deserves or appreciates.” But it’s really quite good.

Songs:Ohia’s new record, Magnolia Electric Company, has slowly revealed itself to be a great work of melancholy and faith. Until now, this band’s career, basically just Jason Molina with a rotating band of musicians, has been largely about a great atmosphere lost in a morass of similar, sleepy songs that all seemed to contain unsettling imagery of “moons”, ”blood”, “ghosts”, or “black crows”. This changed last year with the release of the haunting Didn’t It Rain. With their new album, featuring a full array of guest singers, plenty of pedal steel, and a prefect balance between shakers and ballads, they blossom. The music is amazing, both vintage and inventive. Songs like “Peoria Lunchbox Blues” hold striking lyrical turns close to their heart. “The constellations and Cominskey’s lights / Two old friends in the night / Who always knew they would if they could / Meet one last time in the old neighborhood” goes one. In the beautiful, reflective finale of the record Molina sings, “Hold on Magnolia to that great highway moon / No one has to be that strong.” Okay, so the “moon” thing is still there. But, otherwise, it seems if Songs:Ohia has musically reinvented itself to produce, at least, the best album of the year so far.

On a scale of alerts, where a Timex wrist-watch alarm is a 1, and an air raid warning is a 10, Magnolia Electric Co. rates an ambulance siren, the numerical equivalent of a 9.5.