Out of Focus

Before I started this blog a little over a month ago, a friend of mine told me blogging was addictive. I had already experienced the need to read the 20-50 blogs I had discovered on a daily basis. I mean, other than The Daily Show, The Blogosphere is by far our most trusted news source. Or at least our most interesting and frequently visited.

Yet the past few days, due to the previously mentioned work project, I have found myself neglecting both my reading and my writing, and there has been nothing I could do about it. In fact, I’ve primarily been involved with this eternal struggle between my utter ineptitude and my anal perfectionism. Ultimately, sometime around 2 AM last night, I discovered I was slightly more capable than I thought, and I stopped being a perfectionist. Amazing how that occasionally makes everything work out.

The problem is, I have all these posts bouncing around inside my incredibly addled and crowded brain, and at some point soon (maybe post-seder tonight?), I’ll try to get some of it out. What can you expect/dread? (Take your pick!)

• Thoughts on The Ladykillers, Hellboy and Dawn of the Dead. (Guess what Aaron has seen in the past week?)
• Thoughts on the cancellation of Wonderfalls and the early season finale of American Dreams.
• Sports you say? I’m a die-hard San Francisco Giants fan who absolutely does not expect them to go wire-to-wire again … thankfully. Because I never expected it last year either. It’s not easy to be a SF fan in NYC … you have to search news and info. But Barry’s at 659, and they came out on the right side of the W/L debate last night against a Houston team that looks better on paper. Damn … how the hell did baseball season sneak-up on me so damn quickly. I swear, I almost had no idea it was coming.
• Am I allowed to talk about music? I’m not sure. Kinja is calling me a “movie” blog. (Oh yeah, thanks Kinja for calling me anything.) I’m definitely not an “industry” type and I don’t get out to see the live stuff anywhere near as much as I’d like. (Damn UWS rent-stabilized apartment.) But hey … I’ve got thoughts, and who better to ignore them than you … my loyal reader.

So please stay tuned. I promise to do my best not to bring-up any more of your latch-key childhood memories of neglect. Oh wait … was that me? Anyway … until later ….

Oy, Mondays. And tonight is the first night of Passover which means … oh wait … I’m not the religious. So basically it means I get overrun with guilt at not being more religious and more observant of millenia-old Jewish traditions such as not eating any form of grain and following extra-stringent kosher for passover rules. Throw in a very busy day at work, and what do you get? Chances are, not too many posts from yours truly.

But as I tried to make my eyes focus this morning after a very painful weekend of lots of driving, little sleep and more work than fun, I ran across this fun little news story: Gibson’s “The Passion” a Hit Among Arabs. Now, I by no means want to say that everyone in the Arab world who sees this film will feel this way, but with the current state of animosity caught up in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (and animosity seems like way too tame a word), it is precisely the following that has had people concerned about the effect of this movie on its audience:

Hanan Nsour, a veiled, 21-year-old Muslim in Jordan, came out of “The Passion of the Christ” in tears and pronounced her verdict: Mel Gibson’s crucifixion epic “unmasked the Jews’ lies and I hope that everybody, everywhere, turns against the Jews.”

Interestingly enough, the article goes on to make the point that, “The Quran, though, says Jesus’s crucifixion never happened.” Go figure. Of course, that’s not important as long as the main point of the film — Jews = evil — is revealed and, “everybody, everywhere, turns against the Jews.”

Thanks Mel. Maybe you should go to a seder tonight for a little bit of peace, love and understanding (thanks Elvis). On the first night of Pesach, it might be helpful to remember that the “Last Supper” wasn’t just dinner, it was a seder. So Mel, way to promote your lord and savior’s preachings. Jesus would be so proud. Oh wait … you didn’t do that. My bad.

I’m not afraid. I took the challenge that the cinetrix threw my way. (Yes, yes … it’s ALL about me!) I got six out of 10 on The Guardian’s “All the Reel Girls” quiz, which apparently means the following:

Elder sister.
You’re keen to embrace the history of cinema from a woman’s perspective, but something’s holding you back. It may be years of neglect on the part of the media, it may be self-effacement on the part of film’s female greats. Or it may be a penis.

Guess they got me pegged. Still I was impressed that I actually got six of them right. I’ll admit, my studies of early female filmmakers is lacking — I know Dorothy Azner, but I don’t know anything aboutDorothy Azner. Besides, I hate how everyone always blames the media for everything so I’ll just hide behind the penis excuse. If it works for The Guardian, it works for me.

See, I’m nowheer near as media-savvy as most of the NYC blogger community, so I don’t actually read every single magazine that hits the newsstands, and I’m ashamed to say that I’m rarely aware of what may hit the cover of Paper. So I have to thank Lindsay Lindsayism for alerting me to keep watch at the newsstand for the Tina Fey cover issue. Yowza! She’s always been a big time crush of mine. If only she wasn’t married …. I mean, I still wouldn’t have a chance, but if only she wasn’t married.

April 30 people: Mean Girls. Uncle Grambo (the arbiter of most things hot!) may disagree with me here (even though I’m sure he shares an appreciation for Tina), but I’ll be there for the Fey more than the Lohan.

I hate being scooped on big important film happenings in the NYC area by bloggers in Boston, but that’s exactly what’s happened today. I know the Cinetrix is a better writer than I and obviously knows more about film, but come on; I can read a calendar as well as anyone, and An Evening With Bill Murray at BAM is something that should send instant pings to my built-in radar.

In my defense, I live on the UWS of Manhattan and spend most of my time at the Walter Reade and Film Forum. I’ll admit to not being a big fan of the Leonard Nimoy Thalia because even though the programming is often extraordinary, the seating conditions are really cramped and uncomfortable. Plus, I went to see 8 1/2 there once and was really disappointed because my Criterion DVD was much better looking than the print they showed. And I’m ashamed to say I don’t get to MoMA Film at the Gramercy or out to either AMMI or BAM Cinematek (although I did make the trek out to Ft. Greene in order to catch one of the few Billy Wilder films I had never seen, the fascinating, if imperfect, Ace in the Hole a/k/a The Big Carnival) that often because … well I’m lazy and in NYC MTA terms, they’re far … and again, I’m lazy.

But I hereby make this promise to you, my devoted reader (and yes I mean you … no don’t look around, there’s nobody else here) to not make you travel north when really major events like that are announced, although there are plenty of other reasons to visit the Cinetrix before me.

Thank you,
The Management

If it weren’t for the links I get from TMFTML, I would be completely oblivious to all the truly important news of the day. For instance, I didn’t realize that I was not worshipping the real albeit “unofficial queen of blogging” (west coast … although nobody seems to have heard of her). In fact, I think Eurotrash did a damn fine job laying her claim to the title with this hysterical bit of vitriol today. (Turn west, ET, to take on your far less-worthy rivals.)

But back to Ms. Tiffany Stone who must have had an orgasm during the Blake Edwards tribute at the Oscars this year, since not only has she the “native of Los Angeles … was named after the famous jewelry store” and she named her blog “Breakfast at Tiffany’s after the movie. She’s just all about Tiffany’s. I’m surprised she hasn’t moved to NYC yet.

Actually, the only thing I really take issue with is throwing that word “professional” in front of the job “script reader.” That makes it sound like it takes training, or people have special expertise in script reading. The only people who would actually use the term “professional script reader” (other than obviously the writer of this article) are those specific people who get paid to read scripts. And actually, most of them hate the term “script reader,” preferring the far more pretentious title, “Script Analyst.” Many try to use this part-time, freelance position to imply that they are some type of script, development or industry expert when in fact, they read scripts, write 2-3 pages and say “Yea” or “Nay” (sometimes “Maybe”), an opinion that is considered, given minimal credence, and then essentially discarded. Plenty of scripts with bad coverage and “Pass” stamped on them eventually get made, and plenty of scripts given the “professional script reader’s” mark of approval don’t make it past the desk of some development assistant. I also would bet if you rounded up all the “professionals” out there, you would not find one who’s actual career ambition invovled becoming a “professional script reader” … ever. And by the way, how many of these “professional script readers” place this expert tag upon themselves even though they can’t get their own scripts sold? All while still managing to revel in the opportunity they have to trash all those other writers out there who apparently are not blessed enough to be “professional script readers.”

There’s nothing wrong with being a script reader. It’s a good little freelance job, especially if you like movies, enjoy reading scripts and are looking for extra income. There are also certainly some people who are better at it than others. But it doesn’t make them film industry experts, and lets take it for what it is … a job, not a profession or a career.

Look at how he tricked us? Who would have guessed it? Punk’d isn’t gone after all. It was all just a (shhh!) elaborative April Fool’s joke.

I would like to propose a big ol’ joke for us to pull on Demi’s love-slave: How about everyone say you’ll watch the premiere and then … don’t.

I’m don’t watch it religiously, but sometimes nobody does it better than South Park. Tonight’s episode, “The Passion of the Jew” was better than any column or commentary I’ve read or heard and it was funny as hell. If you missed it, try to catch one of the reruns.

In short, Cartman starts harrassing Kyle about being a Jew and having killed Christ. He’s seen The Passion 35 times and goads Kyle into seeing it. Kyle is thoroughly traumatized by the filme, believing it completely, and experiences intense Jewish guilt over the Jews role in killing Jesus. This encourages Cartman to pray to his poster of Mel Gibson and start a fan club. He gets a large group of devoted Christians and fans of the film to unknowingly follow him as he tries to implement his “final solution.” Of course, these adult fans of the film are depicted as stupid and simple-minded. None of them pick-up on Cartman’s Nazi uniform, German chanting or talks of “cleansing.”

Separately, Stan and Kenny go see the film and decide that it sucks so much, they want their money back. (They convince themselves it’s important to hold bad filmmakers responsible; Stan tells Kenny, “This is just like when we got our money back for BASEketball.” The only thing better than the South Park guys riffing on others is when they ridicule themselves.) The box office guy tells them Mel Gibson is the only guy who can refund their money so they take the bus to LA and Gibson’s mansion to ask for their $18. I can’t even describe what happens from then, other than Mel Gibson being depicted as a bit of a lunatic. But it’s definitely worth watching, and it will go down as one of their absolute best movie satires.

You may have heard of The Razzies. They’re the annual awards “dis-honoring Hollywood’s worst” achievements in film. In many ways, it’s all a big joke. Anyone can join the “Golden Raspberry Award Foundation” and vote on the awards. They hold a ceremony every year in LA the day before the Oscars, and big repeat winners include Sylvester Stallone and Madonna. They even have an actual award statue which is available to any winner. If I remember correctly, only one person has ever gone to the ceremony to actually accept his award: Tom Green for Freddy Got Fingered.

This year, as you might imagine, the big winner that swept the awards was Gigli. Bennifer won plenty of awards between them, but only Affleck in his immense wisdom thought to actually acknowledge the award by trying to make fun of it. The founder of the Razzies, John Wilson, sent out an email detailing what happened from there:

Affleck complained in a radio interview last week that we had “stiffed” him by never presenting him the RAZZIES he sez he “won” for both GIGLI and PEARL HARBOR (he actually didn’t “win” anything from us for PEARL HARBOR, but apparently, he thinks he should have). When I first heard about his griping, I used my contacts to get hold of the production offices for LARRY KING LIVE on CNN, where Affleck was set to appear that very evening as King’s only guest. Toward the end of the hour, and with almost NO set-up by King, an unadorned RAZZIE Award (delivered to CNN by Yerz Trooly) was foisted on Ben live-on-air.

To say it didn’t go well would be an understatement. Affleck held up the RAZZIE and decided it looked “kinda cheap” (which, hey, Bennie, it’s SUPPOSED to!). Larry King then took it from him, declared it was “a piece of crap” — And Affleck then offered to let Larry keep it with his “Emmys and other awards.”

Once King was off the air, I quickly called their studio, arranged to retrieve the orphan object — And quickly posted it for bid on eBay.

Well that auction finally ended on Tuesday. The bidding started at $4.89, which I believe is the actual retail value of the supplies used to glue together the award. 55 bids later, someone bought Ben Affleck’s Razzie for $1,375!!

The obviously psychotic winner also gets his/her very own DVD copy of Gigli which actually must lower the retail value of the item to somewhere around -$50. Seriously though … some people have way too much disposable income.

Blogging “The O’Franken Factor”: No, not me. That would not be so entertaining. I leave the live blogging to the professionals … like Bunsen. He’s listening, recapping and filling all the holes Franken and his “professional” sidekick open.

By the way, in all my mentions of Air America, I have completely forgotten to mention their 9 AM-Noon morning show (starting tomorrow, I guess) which will go by the title “Unfiltered” and feature Public Enemy’s Chuck D as one of three co-hosts along with Rachel Maddow (yeah, I don’t know either) and Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead. I guess they want to really push the less-than-subtle message that Air America is trying to “fight the power.”