Spelunker's World

Monday, November 03, 2008

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Blast from Halloween Past

It isn't enough that Jon Hamm has been awesomely awesomely awesome the past two seasons as Don Draper on Mad Men. It isn't enough that he's ridiculously handsome with effortless grace. Dammit, he's funny too. His guest turn on Saturday Night Live last week was easily the best show in...I don't know how long. Critics rejoiced that the show was actually more hit than miss which I don't think anyone's claimed since the mid-90's. Yet every once in a while they get a good guest star on and an absurd enough idea that it works for minutes at a time.

Witness Vincent Price's 1959 Halloween Special. It's off the wall enough that I forgive them for introducing James Mason as the star of Lolita--a movie which actually didn't release until 1962. But no matter because Jon Hamm's impersonation of James Mason was absolutely hysterical.

"There once was a girl named Regina..."

"Stop! Family show!"

For the Mad Men fans, there's Don Draper's Guide To Picking Up Women

And finally there's the requisite Mad Men spoof, albeit with the most obnoxious recurring characters ever.

I love the sketches but am just sadly reminded that it will be 9 more months until the next season of Mad Men.

Friday, October 31, 2008

I (heart) Keith Olbermann

It's hardly a new revelation that I am addicted to Keith Olbermann on Countdown. Anyone who could gleefully make fun of Bill O'Reilly, for years, because "Billo" got caught on tape sexually harassing a co-worker is tops in my book. Especially because that tape revealed that Billo didn't know the difference between a "loofa" and a "falafel"--a pretty critical distinction when the harassing phone calls take the form of a fantasy shower for two. The fact that Keith regularly names Billo as "Worst Person in the World" is a solid reason why his ratings have skyrocketed the last couple of years. Plus he's just pretty adorable. And funny.

But tonight Keith outdid himself by inviting one of my favorites (and the below mentioned) John Cleese on to his program to discuss the absurdity of "Joe the Plumber" and John McCain's prisoner state of mind.

I remember reading a couple years back that Cleese and his wife had decided upon a move to California because they just couldn't deal with the gloomy weather in England any longer. It's good to see that he's taken such a keen interest in our politics.

I love it when great comic writers reveal bits and pieces of their thinking and how they construct scenarios. (Cleese's spectacular, non-stop commentary on the A Fish Called Wanda DVD extras are alone worth the price of the set.) So when Cleese says that he spent an entire week trying to come up with something even more stupid than John McCain's address to his audience as "my fellow prisoners," and failed, I tend to believe him.

I'm not sure why Cleese is suddenly popping up everywhere now in political discourse, but I also don't really care. It's all good to me. And Keith.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

The Twinkie Defense

I got my absentee ballot last week and I've already voted, so while the thrill is gone for me, I'll spend the next 9 days anxiously waiting for what the rest of the country will decide. On a local level, there is a proposition to allow for physician assisted suicide if a person has received a terminal diagnosis with less than six months to live. There's also another Tim Eyman initiative cleverly designed to reduce traffic but likely to cause more harm than good. Such is always the case with the initiatives he clogs every election cycle with. (Although, damn, I do wish the city of Seattle would better time the street lights. That seems like an easy and obvious fix.)

More interesting is what's going on with Proposition 8 down in California. With heavy out of state funding from conservative Mormon groups, Prop 8 is an attempt to invalidate same sex marriages in a state that currently grants them. Polls are too close to tell whether that will pass or rightly get shot down but it's unfortunate that Gus van Sant's new movie MILK, about Harvey Milk, won't be released until after election day. I saw W in the theaters last week and the MILK trailer preceded it. It appears to me that Sean Penn will be in contention again for another Academy Award based on this performance. (And Josh Brolin is on some crazy good roll right now.)

Milk's politics and alliances played an integral role in San Francisco when the AIDS crisis first hit even though he'd been dead for years by that time. Randy Shilts argued persuasively in And The Band Played On that those posthumous alliances and divisions were actually pretty fatal to a community reacting to a health crisis and a government response deemed simultaneously draconian and non-effective. Despite being a rather valiant figure in certain circles--and the subject of a 1984 documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk--it took ever cautious Hollywood two decades to figure out how to bring his story to life.

Yet now there is an embarrassment of riches. Not only is Gus van Sant in on the act, but Bryan Singer is directing an alternate biopic, The Mayor of Castro Street based on Shilt's biography of the same name. It's Capote vs. Infamous, Prefontaine vs. Without Limits all over again except this time with Harvey Milk as the tug of war prize.

As it turns out, there's a pretty definite reason why this subject--or one very much like it--has remained "in the works" for the past 20 years; according to Cleve Jones, friend and confidant of Harvey Milk, the right confluence of people has never quite been managed to get this film made. A production team would be assembled but Robin Williams would be considered for lead. (I generally like Robin Williams but no....just, no.) Or a decent actor would show interest in the role (Richard Gere, James Woods) but no good script was in place. Cleve Jones, who has been HIV positive for 20 years, was initially sure he'd never live to see a biopic come to fruition. When it became clear that he was actually going to have some time on his hands, he worried that people would entirely forget who Harvey Milk was. San Francisco Magazine details his efforts to finally get a good script into the right hands.

And Sean Penn will win his Oscar.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Be the 50 millionth person to enjoy

I can't help it, I just plain love the "Where the Hell is Matt" videos. While I'm bitterly annoyed that I didn't have a better idea about how to parlay travel into a career, you can't help getting swept up with this guy's charming Snoopy dance.

As a follow-up, "Where the Hell is Matt's Girlfriend?"

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

A new twist on the dead parrot sketch

Since McCain's choice of VP was named, I've been loathe to pronounce her name "Pay-lin" so as to not degrade the name of the great Michael Palin. I've considered her appointment so ludicrous and absurd that only Monty Python could do it justice. As it turns out, John Cleese feels the same way. He reveals that not only is Michael no longer the funniest Palin going, but that Sarah Barracuda Palin is hardly even the most convincing parrot in the game. She's certainly got nothing on the dead parrot, that's for sure. ("No, no, it's just stunned!")

My favorite part? His explosive burst of laughter at the mere mention of her name.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Things I know to be true

1. This is election is over.

Yes, it is. I've gone way past the frenzy and am now in a zen state of complete passivity of what I'm certain will come to pass. John McCain has revealed himself to be exactly what I suspected all along: tired, uninspiring, politically craven and without a clear agenda or vision for the future. Above all, he is a man clearly of the 20th Century and that is just not what this country needs at this time. On the flip side, Sarah Palin is merely the stupidest person ever to run for high office. I did not think it possible that any side by side comparison could render George W. Bush a virtual member of MENSA, but Sarah Barracuda has done it. It is simply astonishing.

In my travels around the internet, I have seen much gnashing of teeth that Barack Obama was not fighting back as forcefully, not opening a can of negative campaigning whup-ass, not countering in an equal fashion the grotesque attacks being lobbed at him. Instead, he's been steady, calm, consistent and at an altogether balanced political equilibrium. Besides being a reassuring trait in a president, this is just sound strategy for the long haul. I've done my fair share of running. I've run short races and long races and even longer races. With the finishing chute in the visible distance, Obama is winding down a very long marathon run. And if I've learned anything over the years about running marathons, it's that the Kenyan always wins.

2. I really need a new job. Actually, there's not much to expand on that point. Just stating a fact.

3. The X-Files: I Want to Believe was a good movie, dammit.

Anyone who knows me knows I've been waiting not so patiently since, oh, 1998 or so, for the second X-Files movie to be released. Even as the television series eventually crashed and burned in a learning example of how and why not to extend a story beyond it's natural shelf life, I kept my eye on various fan sites over the years, hoping to catch a spark of a rumor. Executive Producer Frank Spotnitz actually makes that task much easier by helpfully maintaining a blog of his own.

Last summer a lengthy lawsuit involving Chris Carter and Fox finally wound up and a script was put into motion. An unexpected bi-product of the writer's strike was that the movie was rushed into production in December 2007 for a summer release. (Personally, I might have taken one more whack at the script before filming but "pencils down" made that impossible.)

Once I knew the release date of the movie I kept searching and searching for a visible marketing promotion both online and off. There just wasn't much of one. Miniscule press and nothing viral. In retrospect, I feel quite certain that the promotional piece we did for our retail clients outstripped anything put out there by Fox.

They barely coughed up a trailer six weeks before the release. Needless to say, reviews were a mixed bag, most reviewers lamenting the lack of aliens and big explosions. The X-Files: I Want To Believe is a very different movie from that; smaller, quieter, character driven and a story of "belief" which rings true in a post 9/11 world in a way where the more typical government conspiracy movie just wouldn't fly. Remember the first movie? Remember how it projected that in times of national emergency, FEMA would be the shadow government that took control and stripped us of all our rights? After witnessing them in action after Hurricane Moi, can anyone even project something like that without laughing hysterically? If anything, the Bush Administration has shown it can just create their own national emergencies and strip your rights in broad daylight. Anyway, everyone now knows that it's really the Treasury Department that harnesses control of the government in times of crisis.

Long story short, I went into the movie with zero expectations and had kept myself completely ignorant of movie spoilers. I loathed the final two seasons of the series and wondered if Chris Carter, et al, weren't just willing to make a "prequel" and forget those two years ever happened. But they didn't. They moved on in what I felt was a very logical way and, as a result, my expectations were entirely exceeded. I've got not no desire to re-hash an old review, but I'll just say a few things:

1. The movie has easily the best musical cue of all times. Just one look and one photograph coupled with just one sound packs a most eerie and amusing wallop.

2. The movie has lots and lots of chewy bits for the long time fans to appreciate. My single favorite moment is a scene in the FBI hallway featuring Mulder making quick--but seemingly significant--eye contact with a passing agent. Turns out the agent was played by the woman who used to be "Young Samantha" during the run of the series. Another great moment is seeing Mulder flip through his cell phone directory and passing names like "Gilligan" and "Morgan"--nods to some of the great writers of the show.

Bottom line: this was a very enjoyable movie that, to me, successfully baited the hook for a new movie installment in the series. With 2012 right around the corner, it would seem criminal not to have a movie for it. In the meantime, pre-order the DVD from Amazon.