In Which We Drive So We Can Get Laid.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Hipster Grifter
Yes, this story is crazy, and obviously, so is this girl.
But I felt when I was reading it that there was undue emphasis on her being a sexual manipulator-- like, not only was she a con artist, but she (gasp!) preyed on innocent men who were only trying to be good caretakers to her! This graph is what really got me-- it's pretty much positioned as evidence that she was some sort of femme fatale, manipulating the very earnest (almost suspiciously so) men around her with her devastating sexual prowess:
It was also around November that a guy named Troy was at Union Pool, the Williamsburg bar, when the bartender passed him a note from another customer. It read, “I want to give you a hand job with my mouth,” and was signed “Korean Abdul-Jabbar.” It was, according to Troy, from Ms. Ferrell. Another time, a patron at Fabiane’s, the café on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, said Ms. Ferrell passed him a note which read: “I want you to throw a hot dog down my hall.”
I mean, isn't there a chance that I WANT YOU TO THROW A HOT DOG DOWN MY HALL wasn't part of her manipulative technique, but rather her being funny? Because it's pretty fucking hilarious, and I am adding it to my lexicon. Thank you, Ms. Ferrell.
Of course there's no denying that she conned boyfriends. But considering the number of women she tricked, the idea that she was out on the hunt for another male prospect seems forced. But who am I to argue against a crazy maneater story, cue Hall & Oates please.
But I felt when I was reading it that there was undue emphasis on her being a sexual manipulator-- like, not only was she a con artist, but she (gasp!) preyed on innocent men who were only trying to be good caretakers to her! This graph is what really got me-- it's pretty much positioned as evidence that she was some sort of femme fatale, manipulating the very earnest (almost suspiciously so) men around her with her devastating sexual prowess:
It was also around November that a guy named Troy was at Union Pool, the Williamsburg bar, when the bartender passed him a note from another customer. It read, “I want to give you a hand job with my mouth,” and was signed “Korean Abdul-Jabbar.” It was, according to Troy, from Ms. Ferrell. Another time, a patron at Fabiane’s, the café on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, said Ms. Ferrell passed him a note which read: “I want you to throw a hot dog down my hall.”
I mean, isn't there a chance that I WANT YOU TO THROW A HOT DOG DOWN MY HALL wasn't part of her manipulative technique, but rather her being funny? Because it's pretty fucking hilarious, and I am adding it to my lexicon. Thank you, Ms. Ferrell.
Of course there's no denying that she conned boyfriends. But considering the number of women she tricked, the idea that she was out on the hunt for another male prospect seems forced. But who am I to argue against a crazy maneater story, cue Hall & Oates please.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
If Hollywood dramas were an accurate barometer of the efficacy of our education system, pretty American children would have colonized Mars by now and inadvertently found a cure for AIDS during a game of I, Spy played on the shuttle ride up there. Kids are pretty much always absurdly precocious in movies, and their innocence only adds to their brilliance. They can sense what you’re too old and world-weary to sense: Dead people, aliens, the pain of a sweet fawn hunted down in the forest. Knowing, the Nicholas Cage apocalypse drama, is no exception. Despite the title and Cage’s role as a widowed MIT astrophysicist, it’s the overachieving nine year olds that have the power to preserve humanity. Though keep in mind we’re referring to the same humanity that has continually served Nicholas Cage terrible, terrible scripts, bad judgment, and male pattern baldness verging on Lithgowian. So, uh, you decide the value of that.
The plot begins when Cage’s 9-year-old son, Caleb, brings home a page-long number sequence from a time capsule buried at his elementary school back in 1959. The page was scrawled out obsessively 50 years ago by an unnaturally pale girl named Lucinda (who really would have been put in a special ward for schizophrenia in ’59, but whatever, for the purposes of the film she went to public school). After partaking in the widower’s evening whiskey ritual, Cage drunkenly sets his glass down on the paper leaving a circular mark that allows him to see the pattern. It’s a doomsday calendar! Listing the dates of major disasters, the location coordinates, and the number of people killed. It conveniently begins after the Holocaust and conveniently excludes Vietnam, Sudan, and other war deaths, yet somehow includes the Arizona hotel fire that Cage’s wife died in years earlier that had a total death toll of, like, 40 people.
Anyway, as you may have guessed, the crazy girl Lucinda wasn’t crazy-- she was hearing alien voices, which were noted in the subtitled hearing-impaired screening I found myself in as “inaudible whispering.” (Note: If you’re hearing impaired I would suggest not seeing this film as half the movie and 100 percent of the suspense is the “inaudible whispering”) Cage’s son, Caleb, as it turns out can hear the alien whispering too. What’s scarier, the aliens aren’t some looming unseen, they look like Tilda Swanson in a bald cap, or my friend thought more like Spike from Buffy, and they drive around in a ’70 Chevrolet following Caleb, and leaving what turn out to be plot-meaningless black pebbles everywhere. Also, once they show Caleb a vision of doomsday that features a hilariously majestic CGI moose leaping out of the brush on fire, like a Lisa Frank folder in need of an exorcism.
At the same time, Cage is following the numbers to the sites of all these huge disasters. Essentially the movie becomes disaster porn, and nearly all of it in New York. Okay, I get it. Middle America can only stomach Hollywood tragedy in the location they visit for a weekend every five years.
Like in some other civilization dramas-- Contact, springs to mind, Cage, the once stubbornly atheistic scientist is awed into religious submission. It doesn't even matter if it's God or aliens by the end-- they're one in the same for all intents and purposes. The movie conflates Cage's new faith in determinism with his reconciliation with his preacher father, and devoutly religious family. Cage becomes a son again, and his son, Caleb, in some ways becomes a father. Science, in turn, becomes a myth, and not even a particularly helpful one. Note to astrophysicists: UR LIFE IS A LIE.
The lives which turn out not to be completely useless however, are those of two upper crust white kids, both from Lexington, Mass. who the aliens want to propagate the human race on the retired set of What (Wet) Dreams May Come. Good to know what higher beings value about the human race: PBS, Nantucket Nectars, and L.L. Bean.
The plot begins when Cage’s 9-year-old son, Caleb, brings home a page-long number sequence from a time capsule buried at his elementary school back in 1959. The page was scrawled out obsessively 50 years ago by an unnaturally pale girl named Lucinda (who really would have been put in a special ward for schizophrenia in ’59, but whatever, for the purposes of the film she went to public school). After partaking in the widower’s evening whiskey ritual, Cage drunkenly sets his glass down on the paper leaving a circular mark that allows him to see the pattern. It’s a doomsday calendar! Listing the dates of major disasters, the location coordinates, and the number of people killed. It conveniently begins after the Holocaust and conveniently excludes Vietnam, Sudan, and other war deaths, yet somehow includes the Arizona hotel fire that Cage’s wife died in years earlier that had a total death toll of, like, 40 people.
Anyway, as you may have guessed, the crazy girl Lucinda wasn’t crazy-- she was hearing alien voices, which were noted in the subtitled hearing-impaired screening I found myself in as “inaudible whispering.” (Note: If you’re hearing impaired I would suggest not seeing this film as half the movie and 100 percent of the suspense is the “inaudible whispering”) Cage’s son, Caleb, as it turns out can hear the alien whispering too. What’s scarier, the aliens aren’t some looming unseen, they look like Tilda Swanson in a bald cap, or my friend thought more like Spike from Buffy, and they drive around in a ’70 Chevrolet following Caleb, and leaving what turn out to be plot-meaningless black pebbles everywhere. Also, once they show Caleb a vision of doomsday that features a hilariously majestic CGI moose leaping out of the brush on fire, like a Lisa Frank folder in need of an exorcism.
At the same time, Cage is following the numbers to the sites of all these huge disasters. Essentially the movie becomes disaster porn, and nearly all of it in New York. Okay, I get it. Middle America can only stomach Hollywood tragedy in the location they visit for a weekend every five years.
Like in some other civilization dramas-- Contact, springs to mind, Cage, the once stubbornly atheistic scientist is awed into religious submission. It doesn't even matter if it's God or aliens by the end-- they're one in the same for all intents and purposes. The movie conflates Cage's new faith in determinism with his reconciliation with his preacher father, and devoutly religious family. Cage becomes a son again, and his son, Caleb, in some ways becomes a father. Science, in turn, becomes a myth, and not even a particularly helpful one. Note to astrophysicists: UR LIFE IS A LIE.
The lives which turn out not to be completely useless however, are those of two upper crust white kids, both from Lexington, Mass. who the aliens want to propagate the human race on the retired set of What (Wet) Dreams May Come. Good to know what higher beings value about the human race: PBS, Nantucket Nectars, and L.L. Bean.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Now is not a bad time to be a straight guy. While most markets are disintegrating faster than Dick Cheney, the heterosexual dude market has exploded with successful diversification. You can be constipated by your own masculinity like Don Draper or an effeminate Apatowian weeping into a maxipad and still have throes of female admirers. In the forthcoming comedy Hang Over, Bradley Cooper, whose abs are more contoured than an upscale dildo, pals around with comedy schlub Zach Galifianakis in Vegas. Fifteen years ago, the same pairing would have Cooper tying Galifianakis naked to a flagpole and smearing his balls with mayo. But in a world where chicks are writing fan fiction about nailing Michael Cera, Animal House-era masculinity rules don’t really apply anymore.
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.
As Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall proves, emasculation is comedy gold, but no longer a disqualifier for heterosexuality, or even unattractive to the opposite sex. When Segel’s bawling in his Hawaiian suite over his recent breakup, Mila Kunis, the cute hotel receptionist, calls his room to check in after getting guest complaints about a “weeping woman”. As he frightfully deliberates jumping off a cliff into the turquoise water Kunis yells up at him, “I can see your vagina from here.” Later that night they bone. Regardless of his figurative genitalia and what Mahnola Dargis describes as his “suggestion of an A cup”, Kunis still wants his pee in her vee.
It's acceptable to be a wimp and a heartthrob, especially in comedy. The jokes in these movies are formulaic, but funny, mostly because we have not yet reached the event horizon after which the idea of a mangina ceases to be funny. A dude does something traditionally feminine, his friends balk, he defends his actions with masculine authority, his friends make some sort i-see-your-vagina joke. If Jonah Hill played a guy going to Weight Watchers meetings, the setup would go something like this:
Hill blots the cheese on his slice with a napkin, then on second thought just peels the cheese layer off entirely. He pulls out a small black book and calorie calculator.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Um, it’s called ‘Bite it and Write it’, asshole. Journaling what you eat is the first step to discovering your triggers.”
“Maybe you’re not fat, dude, maybe you’re pregnant.”
The greatest victory of neo-masculinity is the Bromance. To bastardize the feminist idiom, bromance is the radical notion that men are people. They have emotions and the desire for close relationships, even when it comes to their same-sex friendships. It’s kind of about time. I'm serious!
The main problem with Bromance movies is that they typically marginalize the female characters. In Superbad, the bromosocial bond between Jonah Hill and Michael Cera was so strong that girls were pretty much an obligatory pursuit, one that was directed entirely by the penis. The girls are boring or underdeveloped, so there’s a trade-off: Give up fun for sex. In I Love You, Man Paul Rudd at the very least really wants Rashida Jones, but we're unsure of why. The two split up for a brief second after Rudd asks her, “Why are we even getting married?” and then get back together based on Rudd assuring her, “There are so many reasons I want to marry you,” without actually listing even one of them.
But I do think Bromances are generally good for straight male sociality, if only because they self-consciously carve a place for openly compassionate male-male friendship. Over on the televisual funbox, the first season of MTV’s Bromance had Brody Jenner repeatedly using the line, “You’re just not being real” to kick off potential brofriends. The dudes who he couldn’t connect with on a personal level, mostly the dudes who didn’t tearfully confess some family trauma during the one-on-one sessions and subsequently binge-drank were the ones eliminated first. Oh and the elimination round was always in a hot tub. Because seriously, nothing proves you’re straight like being comfortable enough to jokingly insinuate you’re not.
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.
As Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall proves, emasculation is comedy gold, but no longer a disqualifier for heterosexuality, or even unattractive to the opposite sex. When Segel’s bawling in his Hawaiian suite over his recent breakup, Mila Kunis, the cute hotel receptionist, calls his room to check in after getting guest complaints about a “weeping woman”. As he frightfully deliberates jumping off a cliff into the turquoise water Kunis yells up at him, “I can see your vagina from here.” Later that night they bone. Regardless of his figurative genitalia and what Mahnola Dargis describes as his “suggestion of an A cup”, Kunis still wants his pee in her vee.
It's acceptable to be a wimp and a heartthrob, especially in comedy. The jokes in these movies are formulaic, but funny, mostly because we have not yet reached the event horizon after which the idea of a mangina ceases to be funny. A dude does something traditionally feminine, his friends balk, he defends his actions with masculine authority, his friends make some sort i-see-your-vagina joke. If Jonah Hill played a guy going to Weight Watchers meetings, the setup would go something like this:
Hill blots the cheese on his slice with a napkin, then on second thought just peels the cheese layer off entirely. He pulls out a small black book and calorie calculator.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Um, it’s called ‘Bite it and Write it’, asshole. Journaling what you eat is the first step to discovering your triggers.”
“Maybe you’re not fat, dude, maybe you’re pregnant.”
The greatest victory of neo-masculinity is the Bromance. To bastardize the feminist idiom, bromance is the radical notion that men are people. They have emotions and the desire for close relationships, even when it comes to their same-sex friendships. It’s kind of about time. I'm serious!
The main problem with Bromance movies is that they typically marginalize the female characters. In Superbad, the bromosocial bond between Jonah Hill and Michael Cera was so strong that girls were pretty much an obligatory pursuit, one that was directed entirely by the penis. The girls are boring or underdeveloped, so there’s a trade-off: Give up fun for sex. In I Love You, Man Paul Rudd at the very least really wants Rashida Jones, but we're unsure of why. The two split up for a brief second after Rudd asks her, “Why are we even getting married?” and then get back together based on Rudd assuring her, “There are so many reasons I want to marry you,” without actually listing even one of them.
But I do think Bromances are generally good for straight male sociality, if only because they self-consciously carve a place for openly compassionate male-male friendship. Over on the televisual funbox, the first season of MTV’s Bromance had Brody Jenner repeatedly using the line, “You’re just not being real” to kick off potential brofriends. The dudes who he couldn’t connect with on a personal level, mostly the dudes who didn’t tearfully confess some family trauma during the one-on-one sessions and subsequently binge-drank were the ones eliminated first. Oh and the elimination round was always in a hot tub. Because seriously, nothing proves you’re straight like being comfortable enough to jokingly insinuate you’re not.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Sunshine Cleaning Essentially IS Little Miss Sunshine
I think maybe it’s a problem that I can’t forgive any family drama for not being as good as 2nd season Six Ft Under.
But still. The main problem with Sunshine Cleaning is that you’ve already seen it. There’s a wide-eyed, ostracized kid who’s wise beyond his years. Alan Arkin as the immature, oddball Grandpa who pals around with said kid. There’s the holy triumvirate of fam drama: money problems, relationship problems, grieving problems. And an unreliable, but beloved used van. Like, couldn't they have at least picked a different car model?
What’s weirder is that Sunshine Cleaning even recycles the “sunshine” metaphor. In both Little Miss Sunshine and Sunshine Cleaning, the “Sunshine” entity, be it beauty pageant or cleaning service, enters the movie first as an ironic marker of the family’s dysfunction, but later ends up being the source of their redemption.
I think if I were tech savvy enough, this all would have been best expressed via charticle.
My other gripes include: The movie ends with a self-discovering road trip, which has lost all non-spoof purpose since Britney Spears did it in Crossroads.
My likes: Amy Adams, if her smile does not fill you with warmth inside than you are a nanobot. Emily Blunt, a beautiful, beautiful duck.
But still. The main problem with Sunshine Cleaning is that you’ve already seen it. There’s a wide-eyed, ostracized kid who’s wise beyond his years. Alan Arkin as the immature, oddball Grandpa who pals around with said kid. There’s the holy triumvirate of fam drama: money problems, relationship problems, grieving problems. And an unreliable, but beloved used van. Like, couldn't they have at least picked a different car model?
What’s weirder is that Sunshine Cleaning even recycles the “sunshine” metaphor. In both Little Miss Sunshine and Sunshine Cleaning, the “Sunshine” entity, be it beauty pageant or cleaning service, enters the movie first as an ironic marker of the family’s dysfunction, but later ends up being the source of their redemption.
I think if I were tech savvy enough, this all would have been best expressed via charticle.
My other gripes include: The movie ends with a self-discovering road trip, which has lost all non-spoof purpose since Britney Spears did it in Crossroads.
My likes: Amy Adams, if her smile does not fill you with warmth inside than you are a nanobot. Emily Blunt, a beautiful, beautiful duck.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
I Read All The King's Men And Summed It Up In The Following Haiku So You Don't Have To!
The South is depressed
And the adored Gov. corrupt!
Don't do his biddings, k?
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