Out of Focus

Everybody seems to be talking about today’s subway fuckups and awful morning commutes. And while our little bit of Frances may not come anywhere near as troubling as what Florida went through, surprise, surprise — I have my own story of a hellish morning.

Door-to-door, home-to-work, on a good day with all the trains running as if they know when I’m getting to the stop, it takes me 20 minutes. On a terrible day, when I have to wait and maybe even transfer from one train to another, 35 minutes. On average, 25-30. Today took over an hour.

Continue reading “A FEW TIMES A YEAR, THE MTA REMINDS US ALL THAT WE’RE ITS BITCH”

President Bush would probably say, “Support Genocide in Sudan,” but what he would be speaking about is this new CD featuring System of a Down, Thievery Corporation, Gorillaz, Jurassic 5, Jill Scott, Bad Religion and others (21 Tracks in all) called Genocide in Sudan. (The CD is scheduled to ship on Oct. 15, but you can order it now.)

If you haven’t been reading about what’s been going on in the Darfur region of this African country, you should definitely check out Samantha Power’s story “Dying in Darfur: Can the ethnic cleansing in Sudan be stopped?” from the New Yorker a couple weeks back (as always, via greg.org) which provides a pretty good overview of this continuing problem. To their minimal credit, the Bush Administration has not completely ignored Sudan nor Darfur, but they haven’t done enough either, and because of other international stories like the Iraq War and the Palestinian Intifada, as always, the continuing crises in Africa get virtually no attention in the American press.

The bands involved donated their songs to this album so that all proceeds can go to the United Nations Relief Agency and UNICEF. If you want to read more about the issue and the album, you can go to this website from Waxploitation Records.

I’m truly baffled by anyone who can support this president. I’m not talking about the Republican party itself — although I don’t agree with most of their platform, I don’t think all Republicans are evil — but specifically this President. Sure, he can make fun of his verbal gaffes all he likes in a self-deprecating portion of his convention speech, but really, aren’t they more serious than something to simply toss-off. What if one of his small gaffes comes up while he’s speaking off-the-cuff without the words in front of him to another world leader? What if somehow he actually manages to improve Israeli-Palestinian relations and has a little slip while negotiating a treaty — one that utterly offends one side or the other? You don’t think it can happen? The smallest things seem to throw such long, drawn-out negotiations down the tubes.

Today Dubya was at it again. I heard this on Howard Stern this morning; I was reminded of it while reading Daily Kos: “Too many OB-GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across this country.” Of course, he was giving a speech about cracking down on frivolous lawsuits; instead he seemed to comment on how tragic it is that gynecologists aren’t aloud to molest more patients. Nice.

Meanwhile, VP Cheney is throwing forward another scare tactic coming right out to say that if Kerry is elected in November, the US will suffer another devastating terrorist attack, and therefore implying that if Bush is reelected, we won’t. Here’s what he said: “It’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we’ll get hit again and we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.” (Via Talking Points Memo)

I have a very basic premise when it comes to my own voting: regardless of party, do I think an incumbent is doing a good job? Bush has been awful, and not just on Iraq. Everything he promised during his convention speech was basically a repeat of everything he planned to do four years ago, and not one thing has been completed. Those initiatives that have been undertaken have either failed or been underfinanced. We are a divided nation as evidenced by the thousands inside Madison Square Garden who utterly disagree with the thousands who were outside. Saying that we’re “one America” is just closing eyes to those millions who disagree. But sadly, we’re in a country where all politicians seem to try to win and represent 51% of the vote rather than actually talk to and lead all the people.

It’s time for all of us to do what we can to help. In New York or California, some of us feel a bit hopeless because we can’t donate thousands of dollars and to an extent our vote doesn’t count since our states will likely go to Kerry easily. The absurdity of the electoral college system and its winner-takes-all attitude will not be changed this cycle, or anytime in the near future probably. I give major props to my cousin David who just days after proposing to his now fiancee, picked-up stakes from his Northern California roots to move to Arizona to work for the Kerry campaign, on site, in a swing state. He’ll be there until November 2.

Today a friend forwarded me an email about a way for those of us not in swing states to devote our time and energy to helping those on location in the tougher areas by doing some data entry. The people organizing it is calling it “Insourcing,” rather than the outsourcing of jobs we’ve heard so much about recently in the news. If you want to involve or think you can help, just reply to the email address included in the text of the email, which you can find after the jump.

Continue reading “POLITICS OF THE ABSURD”

I’m a huge proponent of DiVo. I could never justify to myself spending the amount necessary on a TiVo recorder as well as the subscription fee even if their programming interface is the best out there and the storage capacity is better. But when Time Warner finally started providing DVRs, a/k/a DiVos, to its customers, I was one of the first to jump on board. Literally, in fact. I had called Time Warner Cable in New York as soon as I had heard these things were in the planning stages. I visited the web site constantly until I saw something about the DVRs on the page, and when the web site asked if I wanted to be notified as soon as they were available, I said yes. And I was. Before their big ad campaign and rollout started, I had one of the machines. Technically, Time Warner says they were still in Beta for the program, but I didn’t care. No longer did I need my ghetto-switching button between two VCRs — I could record two things at once. No longer did I need to wait until a program was over to start watching it; I could start from the beginning as soon as I got home. This was huge when it came time to watching just about anything, especially baseball and football games.

So I’ve been perfectly content paying my $7-8 per month for my DiVo rather than the much larger investment for a TiVo with all these positives but still only one tuner. Sure, when my friend moved back to San Francisco and started bragging about wirelessly connecting his upstairs and downstairs TiVos so he could watch in the bedroom something recorded on the machine in the living room, I was a little jealous, but still content.

What the hell do I do with this news: “Online DVD renter Netflix Inc. and television recorder maker TiVo Inc. are close to a deal to allow Netflix subscribers to download movies over the Internet to their TiVo devices, according to the latest issue of Newsweek magazine.” Are you kidding me? Could there be more awesome than a netflix subscription without having to wait for the DVD? Yeah, it’s not all that different from pay-per-view movies, except for a zillion better choices, depending how this whole thing is run.

Another line from the story: “TiVo has said it was working on delivering unique content, such as independent films, over the Internet to subscriber set-top boxes,” otherwise known as TiVo pay-per-view, I suppose. Obviously TiVo has noticed it’s declining marketshare thanks to cable and satellite companies and they’re fighting back. Well, they’re on the right track. Maybe one of these days, I’ll even be able to afford one. For now, I’m still happy with my DiVo, but the itch for that 140 Hour big boy got a bit more noticeable with this news.

Tonight on The Sundance Channel is the first episode of The Al Franken Show, an edited one hour version of Franken’s three-hour Air America Radio program in the vain of Howard Stern’s E! show. I’m not anticipating such a scintillating 60 minutes of television, but it should be interesting to check-out. Howard Stern’s show works (if you’re a fan) because so much of what happens on his radio show involves some sort of performance or visual element that listeners will make a point of trying to see. Franken’s show will simply be like an edited version of Imus on MSNBC: he’ll just be sitting and talking. In fact, if they use any of the little skits I’ve heard on the radio show, I imagine the illusion created by radio will simply be killed.

But who knows? Franken is funny, and the show doesn’t conflict with The Daily Show (it starts at 11:30 PM — good call Sundance), so why not give it a shot. The radio show itself has been uneven, but maybe in an edited form it will appear tighter and more compelling.

The one thing I do find interesting is the growing identities of both The Sundance Channel and IFC. Both networks were started as homes for independent film, but those mandates have certainly expanded and the personalities of each channel has become more, for lack of a better word, independent of the other.

Continue reading “WHO SAYS I ONLY TALK ABOUT TCM? SUNDANCE AND IFC, STEP RIGHT UP”

I spent much of this weekend avoiding the work/career/writing/etc. things I should have been doing in order to see a few movies (Hero, We Don’t Live Here Anymore, The Bourne Supremacy) and catch-up on my piles of newspapers and magazines. I remember being a much faster reader than I seem to be now. Whatever.

I finally got around to opening the 40 lb. behemoth that was the March Vanity Fair 2004 Hollywood Issue. Yeah, that’s how behind I was. (And, I still didn’t completely catch-up. Sigh.) I was fascinated by one story I had somehow completely missed: the three Mississippi kids who in the ’80s spent every summer producing a shot-by-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The video eventually got to Eli Roth and Harry Knowles and became this huge underground hit. That, combined with the Vanity Fair piece, encouraged Paramount to option the story for producer Scott Rudin to make a movie about these kids making their own movie version of their favorite movie. How awesomely meta is that.

More importantly, I’m dying to see this video. Supposedly it’s really great not because it perfectly matches Spielberg’s original film (at 100 minutes, it’s 15 minutes shorter and, oh yeah, they spent $8,000 versus $21-Million), but because the level of these kids’ fandom, dedication and heart is apparent in every shot. Additionally, the big scenes and effects are reportedly pretty incredible considering their vastly limited expertise and resources.

So here’s a call out to the citizens of the worldwideinterwebnet: if you know how I can get a copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation, please email me. Grazie.

Yeah, I know. Crappy headline. It’s probably due to the lingering headache that began last night sometime around 9:40 PM when Governor Pataki stepped up to the podium and only grew more and more painful as the night went on. I appreciate a good speech, and Pataki gave a good one. Bush gave a great one, even if it was simply filled with bullshit and very little substance, as usual. But the last half of it showed once again what he definitely has over Kerry: an ability to talk to people an make them feel like he’s speaking with them rather than at them. Edwards has it too. Kerry is still first and foremost a politician. Hopefully, it won’t hold him back too much, but sadly we do live in a country where at least half of the public prefers simple, black-and-white problems and solutions even if they don’t match up with the reality of the world.

So you know what that means? It means you should approach this Friday-before-a-three-day-weekend thinking about entertainment. Think of it as a substitute for Tylenol — you know, headache relief. IndieWIRE gives us the scoop today about the Telluride Film Festival, notorious for keeping its lineup a secret until it’s opening day. As usual, Telluride swoops in with world premieres of eagerly anticipated new films, such as Todd Solondz’s Palindromes (which will also be in the New York Film Festival in October) and Sally Potter’s Yes, not to mention Dylan Kidd’s P.S., Bill Conden’s Kinsey and Pedro Almodovar’s Bad Education (another NYFF selection, as well). There will also be a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s early silent film Blackmail with live musical accompaniment from the brilliant Alloy Orchestra playing an original score. If you’ve never seen this three piece “orchestra” playing alongside a classic silent film, you have been missing one of the truly great experiences in cinema. I’ve seen them several times alongside films like the fun Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckler The Black Pirate, the Buster Keaton classic Steamboat Bill Jr., the 1919 Shackleton documentary South, and the absolute genius of Harold Lloyd gallivanting around the real 1920s Coney Island and Manhattan (the film was shot mostly on location) and driving Babe Ruth in a taxi in the magnificent Speedy. They usual play something in New York a couple times a year, often at the Walter Reade. Keep an eye out and go. It’s well worth it.

Oh to be in the Colorado mountains this holiday weekend. To think, I would probably spend virtually no time outside, and for good reason. Look at me babble, and no … I won’t even be there. Ah well …. I’ll just have to settle for catching-up with some things around town. Like Hero which shockingly won the box office race last weekend without my $10 being involved. Or, I could take in TCM’s day of Telluride films, featuring greats such as The Apartment, Ride the High Country and Lord of the Flies (Peter Brook’s 1963 adaptation, not the crappy 1990 remake). And I know I still owe you, my loyal reader, my thoughts on several movies.

Meanwhile, IndieWIRE also previews this years RESFEST traveling media festival which will launch this year in New York for the first time. Learn more about RESFEST at their website.

There is also what sounds like a very cool evening of beer and Donnie Darko at Brooklyn Brewery on 9/23. You get a short reading of “Be More Chill”, a copy of the book, the movie and open bEEr all evening for just $25. (Thanks Ultragrrrl.)

And by the way, just while I’m throwing events out there, I’ll do a bit more relative-shilling, since I did it so well before. ON 9/12 at the 92nd Street Y, you can see Dennis Ross (he would be my uncle) in person as he discusses the possibilities of peace in the Middle East and talks about his recently released book, “The Missing Peace”, about his experiences as the U.S. Envoy to the negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. I’m sure it will be an interesting evening, and if you want to hear someone discuss the current situation for the perspective of possible solutions rather than what might be politically beneficial, you should go hear him.

You know, Bushie must have screwed up my head more than I realized, because I’m just writing a whole lot of nothing myself. I even try to get away from the political and end up right back there, sort of. See how easily influential he is? It’s really terrible, this dumbing-down of America. I’ll see you on Monday … or Tuesday … or if I get bored, sooner. Have a good Labor Day everyone.

For the past seven weeks, I’ve been railing and ranting against the numerous flaws that make IFC’s Ultimate Film Fanatic the disappointment it has become. Surprisingly enough to me, I’ve managed to attract the attention of people involved with the show, particularly the contestants, several of whom have emailed me or commented on the previous posts on this blog. I was especially excited last week when host Chris Gore commented on my Midwest regional entry, obviously indicating that he had read some of my thoughts. Is anyone from IFC or producers Mindless Entertainment reading? Who knows. But obviously, they should be.

Gore wanted to note that, as I had suspected and mentioned, he had very little to do with the creative development of the show last season. In fact, he called himself "a hired hand." He also promises to try to annoy me less next season. FYI, that’s always a great idea, and I wish more people, especially within the many sectors of media, would strive to annoy me less. In fact, I encourage you to pray for the same thing. You see, I am often annoyed easily. Stupidity, or more specifically lack of common sense, tends to be the biggest culprit. In film and TV, it’s usually laziness – producing something that the majority will tolerate rather than going that extra mile and flexing the creative muscles in order to make it better. A perfect example, usually, of the latter is Comedy Central’s The Daily Show which is seemingly never afraid to take a joke one step beyond easy. I say "usually" and "seemingly" only because I’ve actually been a bit disappointed in John Stewart’s interviews ever since John Kerry’s appearance. Last night’s tete-a-tete with White House communications chief Dan Bartlett was an obvious attempt by Stewart to butter-up the Bush campaign in torder to get Bush to come on the show. The previous night with Ted Koppel was almost as boring when it should have been great.

But I digress, because this time, I actually come to praise UFF, not to belittle it. Last week’s finale was far and away the best episode of the entire series. The rounds were reorganized and reformatted, and while still not perfect, I found it all much more satisfying. The better contestants seemed to last the longest, and the weakest were among the first to go. The climax of the show was very satisfying both in the way it was produced as well as the ultimate winner. And for the first time ever, what should be the best part of the show – "The Great Debate" – actually was.

If you’ve been missing UFF and you just can’t believe what you’ve been reading here, IFC gives you another chance to see every episode during a Labor Day marathon. In fact, they’re going a bit overboard airing the entire series 6 times all day Monday. If you just want to revisit those early episodes through my eyes, here’s a list of my full season of critiques/recaps:

• Week 1: Northeast
• Week 2: Southwest
• Week 3: Midwest
• Week 4: Southeast
• Week 5: MidAtlantic
• Week 6: West Coast
• Week 7: Mountain

For more specifics on the finale, jump with the jump:

Continue reading “IFC UFF FINALS: FINALLY GETTING IT (MOSTLY) RIGHT”

Three weeks from yesterday (that would be Sept. 21), yours truly will be 33. If you knew me, you’d also know that this fact is quite impossible and incomprehensible, but nevertheless, my birth certificate seems to make it so. 33, of course, means that I will be as old as Jesus was when he had his nasty run-in with the Romans. Since all of you I’m sure are rushing out in an attempt to buy me presents, let me assure you that I see no need to receive a copy of The Passion of the Christ, so I hope none of those 4.1 million DVD copies purchased yesterday in the film’s first day of release are for me. Interestingly enough, it seems that each individual consumer purchased an average of 1.8 copies of the DVD which means plenty of evangelicals got started early on their Christmas shopping. So with that data and my birthday coming up, you can understand why I’d be concerned.

In fact, another DVD came out yesterday which I think makes a much better gift: South Park – The Passion of the Jew. This hysterical episode, about which I wrote back in April, is a perfect antidote to the megaloMELia that captured all the crazies who turned Gibson’s film into a major blockbuster. The DVD includes two bonus episodes, including a really funny one called “Christian Rock Hard” in which Cartman realizes if he rewrites any song to include lyrics about the glory of Jesus, he can make beaucoup bucks as a Christian rock star. So obviously, he forms a band … and becomes a big star.

Happily, it does seem that parents are still smart enough to recognize what DVDs are better for their kids. While I’m sure plenty of tots will continue to suffer nightmares due to a huge chunk of Jesus’ flesh flying across the screen or Roman soldiers breaking kneecaps using a big club so the crucified will die quicker or the geyser of blood that escapes from Jesus’ torso after he is speared in the cross, those 4.1 million sales are only half the amount Finding Nemo sold on its first day.

For my money, stick with the fish or the Colorado kids. Their comedy is more entertaining, interesting and even educational than Mel’s horror.

I just had one of those computer horror moments. I was writing this medium-long post about several different things, and instead of doing it in Word and saving along the way, I was typing right into my browser. Browser crashes, post is gone … fuck you Windows.

I can’t reconstruct it right now. Hell, part of it was just me bitching about how I’m in a mood and how the RNC, McCain, Schwarzenegger, the Bush twins and Catherine Breillat (I saw her new film last night, and while I normally would be happy about 60+ minutes of a naked Amira Casar, the rest of the film was too painfully incomprehensible) have forced me to just throw up some links-n-thoughts that wouldn’t take too much conscious thought. But it’s gone, and so is what was left of my addled brain for the day.

So I’m going to do some even easier and once again sing the praises of Turner Classic Movies. The new month means TCM’s “Summer Under the Stars” has ended, but as usual those programmers in Atlanta have done a great job. Starting tonight and every Wednesday for the rest of the month, TCM features one star they left out of last month’s celebration: the great Myrna Loy. For nearly half-a-century, Loy was one of the silver screen’s best and most versatile actresses. TCM has some of her best movies, featuring her memorable pairings with other screen stars like William Powell, Cary Grant and Clark Gable. If you’re not interested in hearing Cheney’s bullshit, you can spend three hours tonight watching The Great Ziegfeld, a mammoth biopic about legendary Broadway producer Flo Ziegfeld. Next Wednesday night, TCM will treat us to all six of The Thin Man films, featuring what became Loy’s most popular character, Nora Charles. On 9/22 is the classic post-WWII drama and multi-Oscar winner The Best Years of Our Lives. The story of three very different vets coming home from the war is definitely a bit dated and even quaint now that we’ve been through Vietnam and films like Born on the Fourth of July and Coming Home, not to mention the current state of things, but it’s still a wonderful movie and well worth your time. All-in-all, they’re showing 45 of Loy’s films this month. You should check them out.

For those of you who like your films a bit more adventurous and artsy, you will not want to miss TCM’s month-long spotlight of innovative Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer. On each Sunday night in September TCM will show some of Dreyer’s most famous masterpieces, starting this weekend with both The Passion of Joan of Arc and Vampyr. This Sunday, TCM also premieres an original documentary about Dreyer — Carl Theodor Dreyer: My Metier. On 9/12, another of Dreyer’s most well-known films, The Crucible-like Day of Wrath will also run. His earlier films, like Joan of Arc take over the great “Silent Sunday Nights” series for the entire month. Basically, this entire series is an education for people interested in film and film history centering on one of the most important foreign directors of the first half of the 20th Century.

And remember when three noted film composers passed away last month? TCM honors them all (but mostly Elmer Bernstein) on Friday with an eight film tribute. Plus, as they do every year, this Labor Day TCM gives us a program in tribute of the concurrent Telluride Film Festival, featuring 12 films which previously appeared at the famous Colorado event.

Among their “Imports” this month is the final film in Roberto Rossellini’s magnificent war trilogy, Germany Year Zero, an absolute must-see late night on 9/10. And if you missed the classic film noir Out of the Past last month, you’ve got another shot at seeing it a week from this Saturday as part of their regular “Darkness After Dawn” series.

That’s just a tiny taste of what’s in store this month. Scanning the full schedule, there’s a lot more that’s worth watching. And if I keep having days like these, I’m going to voluntarily go into a vegetative state simply staring at TCM all day and night. At least that would be interesting.