Category: Opinion

Anniversary musings

Every once in a while I like to take time out from the usual grind here at HollywoodIdiocy.com to ramble on about personal stuff. This is such a time.

Tomorrow – or, more accurately, in about ninety minutes, I turn the big 44 – exactly half the age that my father is now. It’s a time of reflection and looking ahead for me. I’ve spent what could be the first half of my life figuring out where I’m heading. So far, I’ve managed to find a wife I love, a career direction I enjoy and yet I feel like I’m still in the starter’s blocks in some sense.

For example, my wife and I recently celebrated four years together. Next year it’ll be our first real benchmark anniversary, five years. That’s a great achievement, but it’s still a ways off from having to wonder about what to get her for a tenth anniversary gift. Not that I’m opposed to a tenth anniversary gift, it’s just a long ways off.

In fact, the whole topic of wedding anniversary gifts is still kind of new to us, being only four years into this thing. But next year will be the first significant one. In fact, it’ll be our fifth and I’m hoping to do a better job at giving appropriate wedding anniversary gifts than I’ve done so far.

By tradition, the fifth anniversary gift is supposed to be wood. I think she’s like something like this, though:

Wood Anniversary Bear
Wood Anniversary Bear

Even though it’s a year away, it’s not too early to start generating ideas, after all.

But that’s not the only thing on my mind. I’m really hoping that soon I’ll feel like I actually own the career direction I’ve chosen. It’s time to round off this learning process, and maybe start thinking about leading.

Entertainment gifts

As the months of November and December draw close, many folks’ thoughts turn to Christmas décor and ornaments. As I celebrate the biblical feasts and festivals of the Jewish calendar, I don’t think about ‘em much for myself and my immediate family, but I still have relatives and friends for whom this time of year is vital.

When thinking about all the entertainment options out there, here are what I think would make a good holiday gifts that are entertainment-centered.

5. LOST The Complete Series. Sure, it weighs in at just under $200, but it’s still some classic television.

4. Under the Dome by Stephen King. It’s a hefty price for the hardcover, but you can get the over 1,200 pages or so of content – which some folks claim is King’s best work since The Stand, at a slim $9.99 on Kindle.

3. Apple iPod Touch. For anything from music to TV and movies on the go, the Touch is still king of portable visual and audio entertainment. Sorry, iPad…

2. Sony PS3. I’ll always be ticked that they eliminated backward compatibility, but at least mine is one of the units that still has that feature. And my wife and I upgraded our hard drive from 60GB to 320GB over the summer, so we’re set. But it’s a must for anyone who has one.

1. Amazon Kindle 3 Wi-Fi. The best eBook reader on the market just got better… and more affordable! A great gift ANY time of year.

New assistant unveiled for Doctor Who

Actress Karen Gillan is about to go from unknown to Who-fan object of obsession. It turns out none of the Doctors companions who’ve shared the TARDIS with David Tennant’s doctor will follow over to the new Doctor’s reign, Matt Smith. Instead, he’ll be accompanied by Gillan, who is 21 and unveiled by BBC as Smith’s new assistant over the weekend.

The boost in profile alone for the actress could help her afford some nice Wilmington NC real estate here stateside, where she might have a better chance to avoid all the geek attention sure to come her way when series five of the new Doctor Who debuts in 2010.

Former Cali guv in luv with “fairness doctrine” revival

One of Jane Fonda’s former flames, former Dem guv of California Jerry Brown, is making sweet, mad, passionate luv to… a revival of the fairness doctrine? Take away the man’s Sony Vaio, for heaven’s sake!

What Guv Luv doesn’t realize is that state control over “balance” and “speech” may sound good when your party is in the majority… but it’s darn scary when it’s not. That’s what all these HollyLefties need to consider before reviving government control over free speech; someday the GOP may be back in the majority and whither the liberal hegemony then, eh?

Still, you can’t shut a faithful liberal up. Said Gov. Luv on the Michael Savage show of late: “Well, a little state control wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

Want to tell that to the folks living in a the “state” of Iran, with Mahmoud Achmadinijad in control?

Review: Ghost House Underground: No Man’s Land: Rise of the Reeker (DVD)

No Man’s Land: Rise of the Reeker is written and directed by Dave Payne, and is something of a one-trick pony of a movie. The main trick of the movie is a misdirect of who the bad guy is; the opening scene plays this to the hilt and once it’s over and the opening credits roll, the rest of the movie is as uninspired as a catalog of office chairs.

The film relies on some rather cliché SF and horror conventions, one element of which even brings some miming into play. The film essentially quickly becomes a survival of the fittest flick, but with a supernatural twist as people who shouldn’t survive certain wounds somehow do.

Relying more on gore and gross-out than actual suspense, No Name’s Land: Rise of the Reeker aims at a lower target than some of the other films in this collection. If they had hit that target solidly, that might be forgivable, but that’s not so much the case here. Despite a nice little shocker opening sequence, the rest of the film fails to live up to that same level of creativity and ends up being more tedious than a film of this type ought to be.

Review: Ghost House Underground: Dance of the Dead (DVD)

Written and directed by Gregg Bishop, Dance of the Dead is a zombie movie that was made right here in the US, and bypassed theatrical release, going directly to video as part of the Ghost House Underground collection of eight horror flicks. A good-natured film that builds characters well, the zombie content is foreshadowed early and yet allows enough time for the viewer to connect with the characters before the movie gets really dark.

The main ingredient that seems to hold this film back from being a mainstream theatrical release, it seems, is the low profile casting; while that kept the budget small, the lack of any established, recognizable stars also is the main reason this film got lumped into a collection of DVDs rather than going onto the silver screen. This makes Dance of the Dead the movie equivalent to a once-rotund person after using the Alli diet pill

That’s not a knock on the performances given by those cast, however; though less experienced actors, most do well with the material they’re given. A nuclear power plant is generally cast as the reason for the zombification of the dead, though that’s barely explored in this release, though it’s hinted that an assault on the power plant will be the main action behind an anticipated sequel.

Though a bit cornball and predictable, Dance of the Dead is the most commercial of the movies in this collection. If they had snagged someone like Smallville’s Kristen Kruek or Supernatural’s Jared Padalecki to take up a key role or two in the film, this would be a movie review, and not a DVD review.

Review: Ghost House Underground: Room 205 (DVD)

Part of the eight-movie horror-flick fest known as Ghost House Underground, Room 205 is a spooky film focusing on a haunted dorm room, and a Danish import brought to the US by Lion’s Gate Films.

The movie focuses on freshman Katerine, who tries to gain the acceptance of her peers while still getting her bearings as a new university student, but undergoes a hazing related to Room 2005’s reputation as a haunted dorm room.

Unfortunately, there’s more to the haunting of the room than pure legend and when a haunted mirror starts to show people who are about to die their fate rather than their reflection, Katerine’s dorm-mates begin to suspect her in the series of deaths that soon follow.

Paced like a slasher film, Room 205 contains a sexual assault scene that, while not overly graphic, may be disturbing to some viewers. The language is rather tame and the English dub job may not be seemless, but it’s quite a bit better than the dub-job on The Substitute. Atmospheric but a bit cliché, Room 205 is effective at building up a sense of suspense, yet suffers from being a bit predictable.

Review: Ghost House Underground: The Substitute (DVD)

The movie The Substitute, which is part of the Ghost House Underground collection, is not to be confused with the 1996 Tom Berenger movie or its sequels. This is a Danish film released this year and collected as part of an eight-movie horror film grab bag. The film stars aging Danish film star Paprika Steen at the blonde substitute teacher of the film’s title.

More kitschy SF flick than pure horror film the movie opens with some gobbledygook about another planet finding Earth that didn’t know how to love, and it was humanity’s capacity to love that drew them here. Of course, there’s very little loving done in the story that follows. When Steen appears as a substitute teacher, her class of students sense there’s something freaky-deaky about her right away; of course, the parents don’t see it and she somehow rises above suspicion for much of the film, even though she never does anything as innocent as playing with dollhouses.

On the upside, the film is relatively clean on the language front and low on the gore factor, relying on more of a building suspense than blood-n-guts. On the down side, the final act is pure hokum, the English dub job is haphazard at best and painfully out-of-synch at times, and the film as a whole is not very spooky at all.

Review: Prom Night (DVD)

Prom Night has a certain amount of cachet for those who remember the 1980 original. The first version starred scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, already a veteran by then of the genre, having starred in the original Halloween two years earlier, as well as The Fog, just prior to making Prom Night. That said … forget everything you know or remember about the original Prom Night because this 2008 film with the same name is in no way a remake, nor does it bear, beyond the title, the faintest resemblance to the original.

While it remains to be seen if Brittany Snow can assemble a career remotely like that of Jamie Lee Curtis, her work here is not quite as memorable. Of course, part of the problem is the script, which moves the horror movie conventions away from their traditional environs and shifts them to a 21st century wish-fulfillment fantasy land. This Prom Night is no children’s book, but it’s also not exceptionally scary, either.

Here’s the main problem: early horror films like Halloween and Prom Night worked primarily because they took place in blue-collar suburban settings that nearly everyone could relate to. By comparison, Snow’s Donna Keppel is taking part in a prom night celebration set in one of the ritziest Manhattan hotels one could imagine, with a prom DJ only a high school populated by the very rich could afford.

All this glamor may look flashy on the silver screen, but distances the character of Donna Keppel and her world from the average viewer; this is what many of us may wish our high school proms had been like, but it is far removed from the experience of most people. This, in turn, makes the terror of being stalked by a prison escapee similarly emotionally distant from the audience, combining to make the film less scary.

Released in an unrated edition that is a mere 60 seconds longer than the theatrical version, the film was originally rated PG-13 in theaters and this version seems to be not much more risqué than the one seen on Cineplex screens nationwide. I imagine the difference would be something along the lines of a few seconds here are there showing the killer’s knife with blood on it, or something.

There is a pseudo-documentary included that “investigates” the Prom Night murders, but few of the special features are all that interesting. Had the movie been more effective, perhaps the special features would carry more cachet to them; but since the film is all glitzy Hollywood/New York wish fulfillment, rather than gritty and relatable, there’s not much here that will send shivers down one’s spine.

Lohan’s liberal lez-views

Considering Lindsay Lohan has joined the pink triangle crowd, it’s unlikely she’ll be shopping with “partner” Samantha Ronson for baby strollers any time soon. But now, like so many Hollywood big-mouths, Lohan has decided to use her marginal celebrity status to weigh in on the current political campaign and – surprise surprise – she’s a leftist. Never would have guessed, wouldja?

Lohan’s comments on McCain running mate Sarah Palin were especially venomous:

“I find it quite interesting that a woman who now is running to be second in command of the United States, only four years ago had aspirations to be a television anchor, which is probably all she is qualified to be.”

The fact that Lohan, whose acting skills were marginal at best even before deciding to “out” herself to regain some sort of relevance, is questioning ANYONE’s qualifications for ANYTHING is laughable and pathetic. After all, there’s not a single role she’s been in that Christina Ricci, Natalie Portman or even Amanda Bynes couldn’t have done far better at.

Lohan, heal thyself.

Review: Tony & Tina’s Wedding (DVD)

I like live theater as much as the next guy, but rarely has a stage play been so ham-fistedly adapted to the big screen. Tony & Tina’s Wedding is a long-standing hit on stage, but writer-director Roger Paradiso’s 2004 adaptation for the silver screen is one that deserves to be forgotten rather than memorialized on DVD.

With That 70s Show’s Mila Kunis as Tina and pretty much no one else of note, the main problem with the film version of the play is that no one toned down the performances for the big screen. While loud, over-the-top characterizations help folks in the cheap seats feel included in a live performance, on screen the result is a lack of subtlety and intimacy that film, by its very nature, lends to the mix.

Now, sure, it could be argued that the play was adapted for the screen; but the adaptation concentrated mostly on keeping the actors moving on location, rather than having them confined on the stage to a single set. What needed more attention was adapting the performances to a scale that could take advantages of the dynamics of film.

Instead, the movie breezes along at breakneck speed and although there are many words, little is actually said. Most of the dialog seems incidental and designed to overplay stereotypes, rather than capture subtle ethnic culture and differences.

As for the DVD package, the special features are only OK, and since they complement such a poor film adaptation of the stage hit, they’re only of passing interest. Some time is spent on explaining the off-Broadway hit that the stage version ended up becoming, but it’s simply not enough to hold together an entire DVD package.

In the end, one would need an Orovo detox to find Tony & Tina’s Wedding remotely entertaining on the big screen. If you’re looking for a musical to be adapted to the big screen the right way, you’re better off with Mamma Mia! than with Tony and Tina’s Wedding.

Moore is Madonna?

Hold on to the dog supplies, as Ass of the Year Michael Moore is releasing another piece of political propaganda, this time free via the Internet. The tripe is called “Slacker Uprising” and basically is the same hash he’s been slinging for the last few years, only staler.

It’s kind of sad; Moore was at one time a promising satirist, but has become nothing more than the left’s most un-funny political hack – next to Al Franken, perhaps. That’d be a close call, actually.

Now, all he can do is try to be increasingly outrageous in a vain attempt to extend his 15 minutes of fame. He’s become the male film director version of Madonna.