HALLUCINA

Things Have Changed!

2011-12-22T12:02:00.002-05:00

Direct yourself over to http://thetilting.tumblr.com Bookmark, follow, memorize, do what you gotta do. I'll be there for a while.

A Broken Heart for Every Drop of Rain

2011-12-08T05:39:00.001-05:00

I've been on a huge Muppets kick lately. Oh, Kermit, you my man! (Frog.)

Rowlf: Whoa, hey, broken heart, right?
Kermit: Does it show?
Rowlf: Listen, when you've been tickling the ivories as long as I have, you've seen a broken heart for every drop of rain, a shattered dream for every fallen star!
Kermit: Exactly. She just walked out on me.
Rowlf: Ah, typical. That's why I live alone.
Kermit: You do, huh?
Rowlf: (starts the song's intro) Yep. I finish work, go home, read a book, have a couple of beers, take myself for a walk and go to bed.
Kermit: Nice and simple.
Rowlf: Stay away from women. That's my motto.
Kermit: But I can't.
Rowlf: Neither can I. That's my trouble...

Rowlf:
You can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em.
There's somethin' irresistable-ish about 'em.
We grin and bear it 'cause the nights are long.
I hope that somethin' better comes along.

Kermit: (spoken): Yeah, I know what you mean...

Kermit:
It's no good complainin' and pointless to holler.
Rowlf:
If she's a beauty she'll get under your collar.
Kermit:
She made a monkey out of old King Kong,
Both:
I hope that somethin' better comes along.

Rowlf:
Ah, but what could be better

Than a saucy Irish setter
When puppy love comes on strong?
Or a collie that's classy,

A laddie needs a lassie,
A lover and wife

Gives you a new leash on life.

Kermit: (spoken): Uh, Rowlf, was that a new 'leash' on life?
Rowlf: (spoken): Oh yeah...sorry about that.

Kermit:
I don't mean to scare ya, my friend, but I betcha
Come "Father's Day", the litter bug's gonna getcha;
Rowlf:
The urge is righteous, but the face is wrong.
Both:
I hope that somethin' better comes along.

Kermit:
Still, it's fun when they're fetching,
And agree to see an etching
That you keep at your lily pad.
There is no solution,

It's part of evolution,
Rowlf:
The pitter-patter of soles,
The little feet of tadpoles!

Kermit: (spoken) Ah, Rowlf, tadpoles don't have feet!
Rowlf: (spoken) Oh. Sorry about that.... 2, 3, 4!

Kermit:
There's no limitation to mixin' and matchin'
Rowlf:
Some get an itchin' for a critter they've been scratchin'.
A skunk was badgered, the results were strong.
Both:
I hope that somethin' better,
I hope that somethin' better,
I hope that somethin' better comes along!!!
Rowlf: Beep bop bidder da dum dum bum bum bum!

Rowlf: (spoken): It's not often you see a guy that green have the blues that bad!

JAKE COSANAVO’S PANTY-MELTING TIPS FOR A BANGIN’ FIRST DATE

2011-12-08T01:29:00.001-05:00

JAKE COSANAVO’S PANTY-MELTING TIPS FOR A BANGIN’ FIRST DATE

By Hansel Castro

Love is a mad naked midget with a bow and arrow. Let me tell you about this date I just had. Her name was Silvia: Syllables worthy of a Muse! A proper woman in a world of petulant bimbos! Although we had previously collided socially, (her, benevolent and friendly; me, smitten but hesitant) it wasn’t until earlier tonight that we met at a restaurant to decide whether romance or friendship or a civil parting handshake awaited us.

Half an hour before the date and there I was at the bathroom mirror with the nervous anticipation of a kid first discovering Drakkar Noir. “You’re rusty! Buck up!” I admonished my shaking reflection. “You can do this! Just let her know that the tender bloom of adoration is upon your heart, and she’ll be all yours!”

My reflection shook his noggin out of sheer embarrassment. Like I said, I was rusty, so I decided to Google for dating tips, (let it not be said that I scorn the march of progress.) And THAT’S how I happened to read Jake Cosanavo’s blog on the finer aspects of modern romance. Without much commentary, I invite you to peruse a post below:

HEY FELLAS, THIS IS JAKE COSANAVO, AND LET’S GET ONE THING OUT OF THE WAY: THE BEST FIRST DATE IS, WITHOUT A QUESTION, AT THE ZOO. THERE, YOUR LADY FRIEND WILL SEE MONKEYS AND BEARS GETTING IT ON. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN TURTLES DO IT? IT IS VERY HOT STUFF. BUT I’LL ASSUME YOU’VE DECIDED TO DO THE BORING STUFF AND HAVE DINNER. THAT’S FINE, JAKE CAN STILL GET YOU LAID WITH HIS:

PANTY-MELTING TIPS FOR A BANGIN’ FIRST DATE!!!!!!

1- AT THE RESTAURANT, MOVE YOUR CHAIR NEXT TO HERS. YOU GOTTA GET CLOSE. YOU’RE A HUNTER, SHE’S PREY. YOU NEVER SAW A LION EAT A GAZELLE FROM ACROSS A TABLE, DID YA?

2- AVOID INTELLECTUAL SUBJECTS, LIKE THE ELECTIONS OR FOOTBALL. THE LADIES JUST GET CONFUSED BY THINKING ABOUT THAT SMART STUFF.

3- MAKE SURE TO TOUCH HER REPEATEDLY. FIRST, HER HAND. THEN, FIND AN EXCUSE TO TOUCH HER FACE. IF SHE’S RESPONSIVE, HEAT THINGS UP, AND GRAB SOME BOOBY. NO NEED TO BE SHY! YOU GOTTA LET HER KNOW YOU’RE THERE TO GET PHYSICAL.

4- SECRET WORD OF THE DAY: “BABIES.” USE THAT WORD AT LEAST THREE TIMES DURING DINNER. FOR COMPLICATED MEDICAL REASONS, WOMEN LIKE BABIES. JUST TALKING ABOUT BABIES GETS THEM HORNY. I KNOW IT SEEMS COUNTERINTUITIVE, FELLAS, BUT IT’S WHAT THE SCIENTISTS CALL A SUBCRIMINAL MESSAGE.

5- ULTIMATELY, YOU’RE GETTING THIS POINT ACROSS: YOU ARE NOT HER LITTLE BROTHER. YOU ARE NOT HER HOMO FRIEND. YOU ARE NOT A “NICE GUY”. YOU ARE A SERIOUS LADY-KILLER!”

Have you ever read such offensive, simple-minded pablum? Appalled, I turned off the computer and headed for the restaurant assured in the certainty that, Jake-Cosanavo-be-damned, the only thing a man needs for a first date is the easy-going confidence that radiates from an honest, open heart.

And that might have been enough except I forgot how beautiful Silvia was. A knock-out, a keeper, with the grace of Greek statuary and a smile out of a DaVinci painting, (you know the one I mean.) She greeted me outside our chosen restaurant, and it was all over for me. I was down with full-blown LOVE the second the appetizers came in. Love, I tell you! A golden arrow snaking through my heart, making me all sorts of warm and fuzzy.

“Silvia,” I said gazing into her eyes while her lips parted expectantly, “Lovely name. Shakespeare wrote a poem to a Silvia. If I recall it went like this: ‘Then to Silvia let us sing/ That Silvia is excelling/ She excels each mortal thing/ Upon the dull earth dwelling.’”

Her cheeks were flushed: “That was lovely! Stop it! But go on!”

I didn’t need encouragement: “Silvia is a name for poetry, if there ever was one. It reminds me of Sylvia Plath.”

“I love Sylvia Plath,” she gasped, squeezing my arm. “‘Daddy’ is definitely in my top 50 poems of all time. I think sometimes people are quick to dismiss her work because of her suicide. And by people I mean ‘men’, who are so unfair to women in poetry.”

“Let us not talk of women in poetry,” I replied, leaning close to her. “What a redundancy! Women ARE poetry. YOU, Sylvia, YOU are a poem!”

“Listen,” she said, “I don’t feel particularly hungry. Do you want to maybe go back to my place?”

WELL. That’s kind of how it transpired in my head. The actual conversation turned out more like this:

“So, hmmm, Silvia… that’s like… the same name as that chick. You know, the writer chick. One that killed herself. Put her head in the oven. With the poem? Her Dad was a Nazi? Not literally a Nazi, but in the poem she says he’s Nazi. She hated her Dad. ‘Daddy, you’re a Nazi.’ I think that’s how the poem went.”

“Pardon me?” She squinted at me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand a word you said.”

“I said that you remind me of that crazy chick who killed herself!”

“Hmmm… Thanks?”

With my usual perspicacity I realized Silvia and I were having trouble communicating from across the table. Did I need a megaphone or something? That’s when I had an inspiration:

MOVE YOUR CHAIR NEXT TO HERS. YOU NEVER SAW A LION EAT A GAZELLE FROM ACROSS A TABLE, DID YA?

Of course! Maybe Jake Cosanavo was onto something after all! I stood up to drag my chair to her side and it would probably have been a smooth move. There was no way I could have predicted that a chair leg would get tangled with a table leg and the whole flimsy set-up would crash to the floor. Bye bye, garlic rolls.

Silvia, the classy thing, was an ocean of understanding: “It could happen to anyone, pay it no mind!” No great harm was done. Less than six minutes after the table collapsed there I was, sitting tantalizingly next to my date again. Close enough for a lion to spit on a gazelle’s thigh.

But the gazelle was getting restless, and the lion was not pouncing.

Silvia smiled tentatively: “So… Who do you think has a good chance in the next elections?”

AVOID INTELLECTUAL SUBJECTS, LIKE THE ELECTIONS

“Let’s not talk about intellectual subjects,” I waved a hand.

“The elections are an ‘intellectual’ subject? Very well, ball’s in your court, mister. What should we talk about?”

What a puzzling question that seemed! And I was speechless! Me! The bon-vivant racconteur, so quick to impart a merry tale at any gathering! Me who had so much to share with her, all my impressive triumphs! Surely she should have heard about the heart-breaking play I had precociously staged off-Broadway at age 19! About the exciting article on Costa Rican eco-tourism that the National Geographic had just bought for a flattering sum! About my two-year stint teaching macramé to refugees in Rwanda!

But when my lion-ish roar came out, it sounded like this:

“Let’s talk about… diseases? Maybe you can tell me what this spot on my chest is. It’s all pinkish. Weird, no? Do you think that’s gangrene? Or am I thinking about gonorrhea? Maybe I am. They both start with G, I get them mixed up!”

No good!

THE SECRET WORD OF THE DAY IS:

“BABIES!” I grabbed her hand in a transport of tenderness and said with the determination of a hypnotist: “Do you know if BABIES get gonorrhea? I hope not! I love BABIES!”

“Let go of my hand, please. You’re hurting me,” Silvia said.

THEN, FIND AN EXCUSE TO TOUCH HER FACE.

“Hold still,” I said impishly. “You’ve got a something in your eye. Could it be a little piece of magical starlight?” For reasons I cannot honestly explain in the sober afterglow of recollection, I proceeded to poke her in the eyeball.

She screamed: “AAAGGGHHH!!! What the hell is wrong with you, you fucking retard?!?”

What was the next step? What was the next step?

HEAT THINGS UP, AND GRAB SOME BOOBY.

I cupped my hand appreciatively around her right breast and said in what I hoped were seductive tones: “I’m sure BABIES love these!”

She slapped me rather soundly: “That’s it! It’s over! Waiter! The check!” Her face was a painterly shade of red as she fished a twenty-dollar bill from her purse, threw it in my face, and said in that magical musical voice of hers:

“I hope you suck Satan’s cock in hell!!! Never EVER contact me again!!! Do you hear me?!?”

Such spirit! But I wasn’t too bothered. Perhaps the evening had ended a little sooner than expected, but I still had the purity of my devoted heart to place before her. I meant to say I loved her. I meant to tell her that her beauty was a storm in my head, washing all thoughts away, all propriety, all manners. I meant to tell her I wasn’t always like this, and that she would surely like me if she could look past a few minor dinner setbacks.

So I walked up to her, hugged her tight, and lovingly whispered in her ear: “I AM NOT A NICE GUY! I AM A SERIAL LADY KILLER!”

She fled out the door, but her fleeing was kind of flirty, so I dunno. I’m feeling good about it! Maybe we’ll do the zoo next time!

Love is a mad naked midget with a bow and arrow. Thanks for everything, Jake Cosanavo!

THE OFFSPRING

2011-10-16T19:59:00.001-04:00

So I can't dedicate as much time to HALLUCINA, but I can't quite shut up. Now there's a tumblr. Son of Hallucina. It's simpler, shorter, meaner, more immature, but it still comments on the movies, books, music, tv shows, and internet nonsense I stumble into. ADJUST BOOKMARKS ACCORDINGLY SON OF HALLUCINA! GRRRR!!!!

Ta Ta For Now

2011-10-05T12:32:00.000-04:00

Dear Imaginary Reader:

I don't know who Atus is, but time to welcome him. Hi, Atus!

There's a few good reasons and perhaps the easiest to understand is that I am moving and my life is bound to be in total disarray for a while. The second is that I was thinking about the Smashing Pumpkins, which I used to quite enjoy in high school. I remember watching their last network TV performance before (first) break-up, perhaps on Leno or Letterman. After a typically perfunctory show, they were presented with action figures of themselves as a goodbye gift, and Billy Corgan, looking at his plastic miniature rocking self, quietly said: "He looks like he's having a lot more fun than I am."

Well, yeah. If there was an action figure of me blogging away excitedly, I might have to look at it and say: "He looks like he's having more fun than I am." I need to re-charge.

"2020 Visions" - Jamie Delano

2011-10-04T18:49:00.001-04:00

When writing your visionary sci-fi dystopias, always make sure to put them at least 50 years in the future. If you've got marauding rape-robots roaming the streets of New Neon York in 2013, you've also got a story that's embarrassingly dated before the paperback even comes out. Not that there's much embarrassing in Jamie Delano's quartet of future tales, "2020 Visions": if some of these possibilities already seem shut off, no one said comics had to be prophecies. Delano, best known for his work on "Hellblazer" and "Animal Man," can over-bake his prose a little, but the sheer range of invention in display here is as intoxicating as the viral disease that threatens Manhattan in the opening (and best) story. Frank Quitely, Warren Pleece, James Romberger and Steve Pugh each illustrate a story. Warning: the collected edition available for purchase is in b&w instead of the original mood-setting colors, which is an ugly shame.

"Restrepo" - Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington

2011-10-04T03:33:00.000-04:00

In "Restrepo," you never see where the shooting is coming from. It falls down from the Afghan mountains that surround the Korengal Valley, where American soldiers have built the titular military outpost. The men, (kids, really, some with pimples in their haunted, startlingly young faces) might as well be fighting ghosts.

Sebastian Junger (perhaps best known for his best-sellers "War" and "The Perfect Storm") and director Tim Hetherington (who was recently killed while covering Lybian conflict) spent most of a year embedded with a platoon in Afghanistan, reporting for Vanity Fair. What emerged is a document that puts you as close as you'll ever want to be to the sheer confusion of fighting against foes you can't even find, for a cause you can't quite articulate. Junger and Hetherington make an apolitical film, (thank God): the futility of the soldiers' efforts need no commentary. You'll never figure out WHAT they're trying to accomplish from their missions. The best answer is they're trying to stay alive while being constantly shot at. No, you don't get the side of the valley villagers, that's beyond the scope of the camera for reasons that should be obvious: if you can't supply your own context, that's a failure of your education and/or imagination. And yes, you may want to sneer at the soldiers and their naive talk of "bad guys" and "revenge" and "making them pay," but again, these are kids, not political philosophers; they say exactly what you would say in their situation- if you were daring or foolish enough to ever wind up where they are. "Restrepo" collected plenty of awards and adulation during its initial release, and although it's hardly DRAMATIC or COOL-LOOKING- why isn't war like in the movies?- it's a GO WATCH NOW film, if only because you need to know what it's like to be caught in an ambush. After you see these tough men, the toughest you'll meet, break down in hysterics at the sight of their fallen comrade, you'll appreciate their sacrifice anew and hate war all the more. Whatever you feel about the absurdity of our war machinery, never forget that soldiers are not machines, but human beings. And, frankly, much braver than you or me.

Girls - "Father, Son, Holy Ghost"

2011-10-04T01:20:00.000-04:00

One of the many reasons I avoid in-depth music reviews, (area where I freely admit my worthlessness) is because I think that, for me, time is more of a factor in music than in any other artistic field. I react to a movie as I watch it, to a book as I read it, to a painting as I crane my neck before it; a short while after I'm done, I've processed enough to speak about it with some authority. Music moves in a bigger stretch of time for me, though. The first time I hear a piece of music I rarely even HEAR it; even when it becomes a friend after repeated encounters, it's still not enough. As with any relationship, it takes some years to see what is truly worthy, to separate a party-time infatuation from true company or consolation. I say this because at the time Girls' "Album" came out and I wrote about it, I liked it fine, what with its "Beach Boys gone fuzzy from pills" aesthetic, but it is only NOW, years later, that I can listen to it and be transported to the fall of 2009, and feel truly moved by it. I wasn't nostalgic before, see? But memories have stuck to it, like fuzz sticking to a lollipop left neglected under a couch. You lick that lollipop, it's a much messier experience. This song means things now it didn't mean then.

In other words, maybe two years from now I can honestly talk about what their full-length follow-up, "Father, Son, Holy Ghost" REALLY means to me. (But by then, who cares?) First impression is that "FSHG," like a summer romance, is best at its simplest, and at its most awkward when it tries too hard. While I gather my thoughts, enjoy "Honey Bunny" (simple) and Vomit" (tries hard.)

"X-Men: First Class" - Matthew Vaughn

2011-10-03T17:52:00.000-04:00

I kid myself I'm a grown-up. Then something like "X-Men: First Class" comes along and if you're unfortunate enough to watch it with me you'll be exposed to this kind of excited patter:

"Well, see, Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence)? And Azazel? That bad guy that looks like the Devil? They're Nightcrawler's parents! And hehehe, Moira McTaggart (Rose Byrne)? She's not REALLY with the CIA! She's a geneticist! Are they smoking crack? However, she was TOTALLY married to Xavier (James McAvoy)! But in the Ultimates continuity, so I'm not sure if they're going to pursue that. Oh, look it's the kid from 'Skins' playing Beast! And, ugh, January Jones as Emma Frost? I guess January Jones does sound like a super-heroine with the power to be really cold in bed. Oh, man, this is sooooo awesome! Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is going to Cuba! Hmmm, I'm not sure I truly believe in Banshee's flying system, it seems to me like he would have to be screaming a lot more consistently to bounce off his sonic waves. Alex Summers is actually Cyclops' older brother, it's odd that they don't really hint at it. Hmmm, HELLOOOO, everyone knows Xavier is crippled by Lucifer! This is NOT how it happens! Hey, Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw? *snort snort* I guess now we can play Six Degrees with the Marvel Universe!"

Usually around that point someone just shoots me in the stomach hoping to cause a painful demise.

X-MEN TO THE X-TREME! BEST X-MEN MOVIE EVAH!

---

Here's a cute picture of Rose Byrne because why not?

"Air" - G. Willow Wilson and M. K. Perker

2011-10-03T05:30:00.001-04:00

ABOVE: Here is flighty Blythe, unable to decide if it's day or night. That's not the only thing she'll be indecisive about.

Blythe is a stewardess who's afraid of heights. Wrong profession for someone who's afraid of heights, you may think. Maybe, but Blythe is completely nuts. It's a very reasonable fear considering a group of vigilantes calling themselves the Etesians are trying to save the post-9/11 skies from terrorists... by indulging in some high-altitude violence all their own.

It was not love at first flight for me and G. Willow Wilson's series "Air." The plot, as it first revealed itself, played like a mile-high-club Harlequin roamnce with some "Lost" ambitions. While the Etesians trade cryptic gang signs and talk of an all-powerful "device" that can CHANGE EVERYTHING, Blythe is busy falling for a tall, dark, handsome and possible terrorist-y stranger called Zayn. Because nothing is easy for today's empowered heroines, we know Blythe is not really going to hook up with Zayn for good until the tale ends spinning, Instead we're treated to endless bouts of pouting and whining and moaning, endless games of "I Love You I Love You Not," all suggesting Blythe has serious mental issues. A typical page of "Air" goes like this:

Panel #1: Blythe leans against Zayn's manly, protective chest. She says: "It feels so good here. It feels like home."
Panel #2: Suddenly she pushes away from him : "But that's what you want, isn't it? To barge in my life and act like we belong together and everything is fine?"
Panel #3: Just as suddenly she kisses him: "And yet... I DO feel everything is wonderful when I'm with you."
Panel #4: Now she slaps him: "No! NO! You think it can all be fixed with your sweet kisses? It's all over between us!" (She runs off in tears.)
Panel #5: Zayn (scratches his head) "What the...? I should have taken that 'Archie Comics' gig instead."

Bitches be crazy, but Blythe is riding first class on the crazy plane.

ABOVE: Here be the corpses of all the relationships Blythe has killed with the sheer power of her deadly mood swings.

But as it happens, "Air" gets considerably better in latter issues. True, most of the characters remain one-note, while Blythe has so many notes she might as well be a neurotic symphony, but eventually I fell for an inventive story that reminded me of Alan Moore's "Promethea." "Air" has myth, history, (New Agey) philosophy, and a pretty good answer to the question: "Whatever DID happen to Amelia Earhart"? If only artist M. K. Perker had been a little better at drawing airplanes, and G. Willow Wilson a little less indulgent of her character's bipolar tantrums, the series might not have been cancelled after only 24 issues.

ABOVE: Here is Blythe, finally put away in a nice room with cloudy padded walls.

"You Make Me Real" - Brandt Brauer Frick

2011-10-03T03:46:00.000-04:00

Brandt Brauer Frick is not a law firm, but a German trio of music geeks who try to push John Cage into the dance floor. Their debut, "You Make Me Real," takes organic orchestra sounds and tries to adapt them to a club setting: minimalism is in the house. Does it work? Not for rug-cutters, but if you need heavy, hypnotic, authentic instrumentals for your headphones, try a track like "Bop."

"Duets II" - Tony Bennett

2011-10-02T22:00:00.000-04:00

Tony Bennett is so awesome. 98 and STILL putting absolutely no effort into his "Duets" albums.

Tony: "What's that? Lady Gagger collaboration? Sure, why not? Swell gal, swell gal. Judy's great-grand-daughter or something, right? Does the broad know 'The Lady is a Tramp"? We'll do that."
Producer: "Tony, that may be a little on the nose."
Tony: "I'll tell you what's on the nose!!!" *takes sudden power nap that lasts three days.*

"Bridesmaids" - Paul Feig

2011-10-02T16:15:00.001-04:00

Oh hey, look! It's "Bridesmaids"! The courageous feminist movie manifesto! The one that was boldly going to establish a woman's equal rights to shitting on screen!

Kristen Wiig is the "quirky if you're feeling kind/ irredeemable selfish if you're feeling mean" Annie. Annie's bakery business has crumbled and she's feeling less than appreciated by her sex-buddy (a breezy cad played by Jon Hamm, in a role that I swear must have been written for Paul Rudd.) To top off her misfortunes, her best friend Lillian, (Maya Rudolph) is getting HAPPILY MARRIED leaving her alone to singledom! Lillian has even gotten a new biffle in hyper-perfect Helen (Rose Byrne, purty as usual). Naturally, Annie can barely contain her need to murder Helen and Lillian and take a dump on top of the wedding cake. Instead she lets her self-involvement subtly sabotage her relationships, (including a love affair with a cop played by Chris O'Dowd from "The IT Crowd.")

Paul Feig's (and Judd Apatow's, I suppose) "Bridesmaids" is the answer to years of people complaining their movies never passed the Bechdel Test, (you know, the one that says that movies were written by rapists unless they contain two women attending a lesbian film festival without male accompaniment.)*

"Bridesmaids" passes the test in that the cast is heavily female and the male characters are unimportant at best, and at worst reduced to the male version of the Madonna/Whore complex (which I hereby baptize as either the Eunuch/Stud Complex, the Harmless Puppy/Rabid Dog Complex, or the Long-Suffering-Borderline-Gay-Guy/The-Asshole-who-Gets-All-the-Girls Complex. You pick the catchiest one.)

Unfortunately, it fails the test in that the leads are STILL largely basing their happiness on how a MAN makes them feel, and being absolute c-words to each other. It's about bitchy bridesmaids at a WEDDING! This is NOT "The Hangover" for women. It's "27 Dresses" for women who appreciate a good vomit joke.

So now that I said all that boring "social significance" bull Universal Studios paid me to say: was "Bridesmaids" funny? I sure thought so, particularly for Melissa McCarthy's movie-stealing performance.

It was about 40 minutes too long, though. It used to be comedies knew their place: barefoot, pregnant, in the kitchen, and lasting no longer than an hour and a half. Two hours was for serious dramas. Anything longer than that had better be a historical epic described with the words "lavish" and "sprawling." "Bridesmaids" is nearly 2 hours and a half and yet it is not, as far as I can tell, about the Holocaust or the Fall of the Roman Empire. Faux pas.

---

*KIDDING, KIDDING, menstruating monsters! Put the claws away! I love Alison Bechdel! I was a huge fan of "Dykes to Watch Out For" even before I realized I wasn't technically a dyke! "Fun Home" is one of my top 10 graphic novels all time! Ok, fine, top 50.

---

Here's a cute picture of Rose Byrne because why not?

"Paul" - Greg Mottola

2011-10-01T20:54:00.001-04:00

"E.T." was lacking in dick jokes. "Alien" was lacking in Jason Bateman cameos. We can all agree on this.

What we can't agree on is "Paul." Greg Mottola's first-contact parody has the dick jokes and the Jason Bateman, (and the contributions of funny types like Bill Hader, Joe Lo Truglio, Kirsten Wiig and Jane Lynch) but it's lacking on effort: this is a rusty spaceship lazily landing with a thud. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, (now practically symbiotic) are Brits on a sci-fi, Comic-Con inspired road trip through America's UFO hot spots. Soon enough they run into an obnoxiously familiar alien voiced by Seth Rogen, (obnoxious/Set Rogen... I know, I'm being redundant.) Half as uproarious as the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost/Edgar Wright comedies, ("Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz"), half as genuine as Mottola's own movies ("Adventureland" and "Superbad"), "Paul" just checks off alien cliches to mock: if you add nothing, then you end up with an anthology of cliches. Not an unpleasant diversion- Pegg and Frost have the easy chemistry of eternal roommates- but nothing to phone home about.

"Rango" - Gore Verbinsky

2011-09-30T01:32:00.001-04:00

And if French people can take over Westerns, why not lizards?

Gore Verbinsky, the merely reliable director of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, somehow manages to get better acting out of Johnny Depp than Tim Burton does these days. "Rango" is animated, with aggressively ugly designs, but that deliberate deviation from the likable Pixar standards makes it stand out among the competition. The plot is Hollywood gazing at its molting skin: does one's life make sense outside of a movie context? It doesn't, the answer seems to go, and "Rango" gives its titular lizard hero two movie traditions to live in. Half the movie is "Chinatown," with Ned Beatty doing a dead-on John Huston impersonation, (considering he's voicing an animated turtle, and also considering he voiced a similar villain in "Toy Story 3".) The other half pays homage to Sergio Leone's westerns. Coincidentally, Timothy Olyphant shows up to do a CGI impersonation of the Man with no Name: Clint Eastwood has sworn off acting, prematurely. He could kick ass into his 100's, as far as I'm concerned.

Here's corporate composer Hans Zimmer's "Rango Suite."

"Lucky Luke" - Morris and Rene Goscinny

2011-09-29T06:29:00.000-04:00

I'm a poor, lonesome cowboy, I'm a long way from home...

If there can be Spaghetti Westerns and Sukiyaki Westerns, why not Baguette Westerns? Asterix is Rene Goscinny's most famous creation, but lonesome cowboy Lucky Luke is a close second. WEEELL, Lucky Luke is the creation of Belgian cartoonist Morris, but Goscinny wrote the best stories of a series that refuses to ride into the sunset: there are now 76 albums, (compare to the tiny Gaul's mere 34 albums). Only a fraction of those have been translated into English.

Accompanied by clever horse Jolly Jumper, Lucky Luke goes through most of the familiar Wild West scenarios, often chasing the hilarious Dalton Brothers or dealing with RinTinCan, the dumbest dog this side of Marmaduke. Real life celebrities pop up: Jesse James, Calamity Jane, Billy the Kid, Buffalo Bill, and the stories are far better researched than anyone should expect them to be. The series is not as gag packed as "Asterix" and Lucky Luke is generally too placid a figure to be a source of comedic chaos, but it's still unbelievable that he's not more popular in the very country through which he wanders.

Maybe it's the amiable un-PCness of the books? Maybe it's the self-rolled cigarette that perpetually dangles from Lucky Luke's lower lip? In the '80s, after decades of joyful incessant smoking, Morris let censorship win and put a straw in LL's orally-fixated mouth. Lucky Luke is now an exemplary health nut.

"Justified" Season 2 / "Eleven Eleven" - Dave Alvin

2011-09-28T21:44:00.000-04:00

ABOVE: There are pictures of prettier people below.

I made Dave Alvin's acquaintance in a Season 2 episode of "Justified," rocking the sawdust right off a country bar. "Justified" is set in Harlan County, Kentucky, famous for the miner's strike documented in Barbara Koppel's Oscar-winning "Harlan County USA," and Alvin's recent album "Eleven Eleven" opens with "Harlan County Line." See the connection?

You can tell the territory Alvin travels: this is roots rock with a conscience, tales of people whose hard work was repaid with miner's lung, of common folks beat up by circumstances, of desperadoes boasting against their encroaching doom. Stompers like "Johnny Ace is Dead" and "Run, Conejo, Run" alternate with a "guilty woman" ballad like "Black Rose of Texas," or with the plaintive Texano cry of "No Llores Mija" (a song that dares to understand why a border-crossing drug dealer might do what he does.) There's also room for a genial blues work-out like "What's Up with Your Brother?" If you want to hear a grizzled troubadour righteously rock a saloon, "Eleven Eleven" is it.

You know what else is IT? "Justified" of course! The first season was fine, but it's season 2 that announces a show every bit as good as "Sons of Anarchy" and far more enjoyable than some overrated critical darlings I won't mention lest Marshal Raylan Givens go out and shoot their asses off the air. As Raylan, Timothy Olyphant is still the man. Although the unpredictable Boyd (Walton Goggins) is still giving him headaches, Raylan has put away most of the Crowder family, but now he's up against the similarly predatory Bennet clan. Can't keep the bad weeds from sprouting. I don't much follow awards shows, so I have no idea if Margo Martindale won an Emmy for her amazing performance as matriarch Mags Bennet. I think she did, and I KNOW she did IN MY HEAD, and if "Justified" had been a feature film, she would obviously deserve an Oscar as well.

ABOVE: Believe me, when this lady is getting a picture way above Rebecca Creskoff or Natalie Zea, it's because she's AWESOME.

Mags rules Harlan County, lovingly adopts a girl named Loretta (after murdering the girl's father) and keeps her three "boys" in line, sometimes by breaking their fingers with a hammer. Spare the hammer, spoil the hillbilly. (Of note: Jeremy Davies, from "Lost," as one of her sons. Davies always plays the same twitching weirdo but is so good at it I don't blame him.) Mags also goes up against the Black Pike mining corporation, which is bent on controversial mountain top removal procedures. (Also of note: Rebecca Creskoff as a steely corporation representative who is so hot I might have to check her out in that "Hung" show that no one I know has ever seen. Or at least won't admit to having seen.)

ABOVE: She can remove my mountain top anytime. I had a really hard (and enjoyable) time finding pictures of Rebecca where she wasn't naked, and that's how you know she's a fine actress.

With a rival like Mags, what's Raylan going to do? Mostly freak out while his ex Winona (Natalie Zea) tries for another divorce and, oh yeah, steals thousands of dollars from an evidence locker. In Season 1 Winona was there to remind us Raylan wasn't into any "Deliverance"-type deviation, but here she finally becomes a character worth caring about. Unfortunately this comes at the expense of the show's other pretty lady, Ava Crowder (Joelle Carter) who would be fully justified in shooting the writers for neglecting her entirely.

Ha! I said JUSTIFIED! See what I did there? It ties it all together! That's a little writing trick for youse all folks.

ABOVE: A visual representation of the differences between Winona and Ava when Season 2 plotlines were handed out.

LOSER DOG in: THE HOUSE OF SAND AND DOG!

2011-09-28T17:50:00.000-04:00

26- The Crown Was Too Much by Jeanv999

27- Henrik Ibsen's "A Dog House" by Jeanv999

28- Love- O-Tomy!- By HC by Jeanv999

29- Why Would You Even ask That? - By HC by Jeanv999

30- Negotiating Tactics- By HC by Jeanv999

"Room" - Emma Donoghue

2011-09-28T13:51:00.000-04:00

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Jack is 5 years old. (An incredibly intelligent, verbose 5 years old one second, an alien babbler the next.) He's lived in "Room" all his life- a prison he assumes is the entirety of Planet Earth. He shares Room with his mother, who has been there even longer than he has: for seven years she has been kept trapped, and repeatedly raped by a sadist she calls Old Nick.

It's an incredibly disturbing premise, a horror story really, but at some point Emma Donoghue decided she wasn't as interested as being in your nightmares as she was interested in being in your book club, so this is a story full of "love" and "hope" and "survival." A novel that could have been terrifying opts instead to be "inspiring." I realize this is a + for today's squeamish reader, but my interest all but died at the halfway point, when the horrifying situation is resolved and we're left to see how Jack copes with a BIG OLD WORLD. Once the Room opens, the Suspense runs right out through it. There's a reason why scary movies end when the bad guy gets killed. Who cares if Jack thinks the world is wacky? Well, social workers might, but I didn't. 5 year old kids cope really well anyway, and they spend lots of time trapped in their rooms: it's not like they need freedom to vacation through Europe. If we had seen more of his MOM'S side of the story, that I would have cared about, but her plight only comes to us through Jack's cutesy "I-dun-understan'-adults" voice. Most people will love "Room"; I thought it chickened out of even darker possibilities.

"Polytechnique" - Denis Villeneuve

2011-09-28T01:52:00.000-04:00

In December 6 of 1989 a disturbed young man called Marc Lepine walked into Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique carrying a semi-automatic rifle. 20 minutes later he killed himself, after having murdered or wounded 28 people- mostly young women. A Canadian-Algerian immigrant whose misogynist writings made him out to be a sort of reverse Valerie Solanas, Lepine was bent on destroying the females who, he believed, had ruined his life with their unpleasant feminism.

Denis Villeneuve, (the director of "Incendies") dramatized the events of the Montreal Massacre, (Canada's own Columbine) in 2009's "Polytechnique." Starring Maxim Gaudette as an (unnamed) Lepine and Karine Vanasse (who I just saw starring in "Pan Am"!) as one of the survivors of the massacre, this is a tough one to watch. In many ways it's a slasher film as horrifying as any in recent years, except its villain is real, the evil it depicts undeniable. Villeneuve wisely abstains from insinuating that Lepine's actions are a natural extension of woman-hating rhetoric, but he also doesn't abstract the event from a reality in which women are still treated with suspicion when they announce they want to study aeronautics. It's not that the killer ranting against feminism and the employer denying a woman workplace opportunities are the same thing, but (the movie seems to say) they're not entirely unconnected either.

Like Gus Van Sant's kindred "Elephant," "Polytechnique" is more about achieving a certain "feel" than creating a documentary. Villeneuve shoots in black and white, not for any kind of anachronistic newsreel effect, but to convey a poetic austerity. It works: in color, this would be a gory action film. In black and white, it's an elegy. Ordinarily I hate that solemn approach, but if you're going to get elegiac about something, it might as well be about 14 innocent women being shot down.

"Transmetropolitan" - Warren Ellis - Volumes 9 and 10

2011-09-27T16:36:00.000-04:00

There is an implied apology by Darick Robertson in the acknowledgments at the very end of "Transmetropolitan." He explains that he was giving the artwork all he could, even if it seems like he's given up. It DOES seem like he's given up: the quality significantly decreases and someone named Rodney Ramos apparently pitched in. By Robertson's admission, he finished some issues in as little as three days.

So if the previously detailed art suffered, and most of the gags are reiterations of previous imagery, what's to be said for the winding down of Spider Jerusalem? Neurologically doomed by an excess of journalistic dedication, Spider has to bring down President Callahan before the haze sets in. The problem, plot wise, is that Callahan is about as threatening as a bowel-disruptor set on "fart." He's like Major Quimby in "The Simpsons." Warren Ellis concludes everything like a decent gentleman should, but I was disappointed by how the HUGE intricate world of the future was neglected for a TINY "expose the horny politician" scandal. "Transmetropolitan" began by being about sooo much; why did it end by being about a silly Kennedy parody?

"Incendies" - Denis Villeneuve

2011-09-27T01:41:00.000-04:00

Q: When will there be peace in the Middle East?
A: Hahahahahahaha!

Denis Villeneuve's "Incendies" is a GO WATCH NOW proposition, at least until a jarring contrivance takes us from "thoughtful political mystery" into "All My Children" territory, (seriously, Villeneuve might as well have had someone's evil twin fall down an elevator shaft. "OR WAS HE PUSHED?!?" *dum dum DUM*) An adaptation of a play by Wajdi Mouawad,"Incendies" is also theatrical in its coincidences and its inspirations: it is basically a Middle Eastern variation on "Oedipus Rex." Mostly set in an unnamed war-torn country which I could not identify and my general ignorance classifies as a "messed-up sandy place where Christians and Muslims are killing each other" (I think it's Lebanon?) the movie follows Canadian twins Jeanne and Simon (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin and Maxim Gaudette) as they try to fulfill the bizarre request made by her mother (Lubna Azabal) before her death: that they should travel to "messed-up sandy place where Christians and Muslims are killing each other" to look for a father and a brother they knew nothing about. As in "Oedipus Rex," the discoveries that await them are horrifying and, honestly, they should have just stayed home and given up on the quest. Ignorance is the happy healing band-aid on the cuts you didn't know you had. Don't people read Greek theater anymore? Sometimes, you're better off not knowing ALL about your mother.

Some Strange Music Draws Me In - Patti Smith - "Outside of Society"

2011-09-26T19:53:00.000-04:00

For a while as a kid I was working under the unforgivable delusion that Patti Smith and Pat Benatar were the same person. "Because the Night," "We Belong to the Night," same thing, no? At some point pictures, usually of the androgynous Mapplethorpe variety, cured me, but it wasn't really until I got into "Horses" that I was like: "OOOHHHH, I see why this person matters." Still I never got a chance to go digging in her catalogue, so when I encountered "Outside of Society" I picked it up. It's that rare reminder of the late, oft-lamented music industry: A "greatest hits" record. Many a snob with disposable income used to sneer at those ("NO! You should buy all 25 releases of an artist you're not that familiar with, HELLO!") but for people with little money and a lot of catching up to do, nothing was better. Now that the "album" submissively gave in to the "playlist," for better or worse, it's obvious we were always waiting to break those 50 or 60 minute behemoths into "the parts we liked."

Greatest hits!

Here's "Dancing Barefoot."

"Conquistadora" - Esmeralda Santiago

2011-09-26T15:48:00.000-04:00

It's probably a little Anglo-centric to describe Esmeralda Santiago's "Conquistadora" as "Gone with the Puertorican Wind," but that's what came to my mind and that's what will come to yours. Ana (a stubborn Spanish beauty from the 1800s who migrates to the tropics to become a plantation owner) is very O'Hara-ish. What else will come to mind? Isabel Allende's novels. Period novelas. Every historical epic ever. Every escapist platitude about "strong, independent women" that keeps romance-readers anesthetized through their lives of weak subservience to the patriarchy and/or their cats. (Damn, that sentence came out bitter.)

"Toda Mafalda" - Quino

2011-09-25T18:42:00.000-04:00

Mafalda hates soup (for obvious reasons). She also hates political extremism and that sell out, James Bond. One of her '60s strips finds her staring at the world globe she nurses in a corner of her room, wishing the Pentagon and the Kremlin would just disappear and give peace a chance. She pauses. "Oh, and James Bond, he needs to go away too," she adds.

She loves that globe, but not without some reservations: what with war, crime, poverty and natural disasters, it can be almost as off-putting as soup sometimes. She loves the Beatles, even though she's not too sure about the lyrics, given that she's Argentinean and speaks only Spanish, (although all the billboards in her city seem to scream down at her in English). She likes her friends enough to tolerate them with their all-too-human insanities: Manolito with his incipient capitalist greed; gossipy Susanita with her conservative views; shy Felipe with his runaway imagination; Miguelito with his optimistic refusal to take reality into account.

Our heroine is 6, so she's free to ask all the really important questions her parents are too terrified to answer. One of the greatest comic strips of all time, "Mafalda" reads like Joaquin Salvador Lavado (Quino) took Charles Schulz' "Peanuts," shook it by the shoulders and said: "Alright, Charlie Brown, you're depressed, that's understandable, but have you READ the news? Let me give you a REASON for that depression!" Here's Schulz paying his respects to Quino: "The kind of ideas that he works with are some of the most difficult, and I am amazed at their variety and depth. Also, he knows how to draw, and to draw in a funny way. I think that he is a giant."

Schulz would know.

"Mafalda" is sweet and often bleak, hilarious and frequently sobering; it will make you feel embarrassed for "funny pages" that say nothing funny or important and are drawn by people who seem to actively hate the act of drawing.

Look at this:

(Reading in the Dictionary: "Democracy: A system of government in which people have the power.")
Beautifully drawn, smart, doesn't explain itself, and it delivers a bitter truth.

Now compare that to a random episode of Art and Chip Sansom's "The Born Loser":

Why is this strip intrinsically unfunny? That's right, because the "bad words" are CENSORED FROM THE BEGINNING, so when they are DOUBLY censored it makes NO FUCKING SENSE. This puppy was castrated before it even got a chance to sniff tail. But wait, it gets worse. If it hadn't been censored, it STILL wouldn't be funny, because how horrible could the cuss words have been coming from someone so lame his insults begin with "dirty, rotten"? What was censored? "Scoundrel"? But the biggest problem here is that it says NOTHING about censorship, or about echoes, or about the kind of anger that would make a character scream from the mountain tops: it's a strip that has no ideas to put forward, and didn't even have the decency to give you a cute drawing to distract your eye.

I know, I run a shitty comic strip so I shouldn't put flaming bags of poop in front of other people's glass houses, but HEY, I started doing mine the other day, and I'm trying to learn. "The Born Loser" has been around since the mid '60s, and this is not even the worst strip your syndicate carries, (that would be "The Lockhorns".) "The Born Loser" is simply representative of the mid-range: too dull to even provoke anger.

Anyway, back to a classic. Although you lose some delightful colloquialisms, the English translations of Mafalda are well done. Start here:

If you read Spanish, then there's little excuse not to own this: