ACERBIC TREATS:
POP CULTURE
CORNUCOPIA COLUMN OF CALAMITY.
05.22.08
So with the NBA playoffs almost over, I have
decided to go ahead and proceed with predicting the last 2 rounds
and bury the sports talk in my column unless I have a particular
juicy rant I need to unfurl out of my loins. This was more to do
with me realizing that sports really doesn’t fit with entertainment
(unless it is “SportZ Entertainment X” per TNA and Vinnie Mac), and
an astute staff member confirming as such.
So with that being said, onwards to the second
to last predictions for the NBA playoffs!
THE SLIGHTLY LESS PRE-DETERMINED SPORTS PREDICTIONS
#1 LOS ANGELES LAKERS vs. #3 SAN
ANTONIO SPURS
I FINALLY predicted one correctly! Yes! Start
sending me your paychecks CCCHHHHUUUUMMPPPSSSS. The Lakers moved on
past the Utah Jazz by telling them the first team to win 4 games
would exchange vows with one woman, for the rest of their lives, on
the wedding ring laden grave of Brigham Young. The Jazz, while not
being Mormon, are athletes and the thought of being with one woman
forever scared them into submission. San Antonio bored their way
through a Game 7 with the Hornets with old fashioned gumption,
leeches, and a trainer whose response to any injury is to “swig some
whiskey, that leg needs to be sawed off”. Watching the Lakers come
from 20 down to win the game was stressful and awesome, and seemed
like the Lakers were toying with the Spurs, like the Spurs’ bladders
toy with the Spurs. Lakers 4-3
#1 BOSTON CELTICS vs. #2 DETROIT
PISTONS
Detroit is good. Boston is good. The winner? Who
cares. This was supposed to be the match-up of the year (as their
first meeting in the regular season was incredibly hyped) but the
west has blown away the east in terms of drama and great series. I
think Boston toyed with the Cavs and the Hawks to make the series
more exciting. They failed because I don’t know anyone who seriously
thought the Hawks or the Cavs had a shot. The finals should be fun
though. Detroit 4-2
TELEVISION: THE OPIATE OF THE MASSESS
(SPOILERS FOLLOW) A few weeks back I had written
a blurb about “The Office” and about how it has lost some of its
muster by basically stumbling into the absurd. Characters became
caricatures. Take a look at the early episodes of the show as well
as the entire British series and you’ll notice the stark change that
happened over the past year. You could imagine someone like David
Brent running an office. He was a real character with his fatal
flaws. He wants to be loved, and he’s funny but grossly
inappropriate. Michael Scott is somewhat the same, but instead of
being funny, he is just lame and inappropriate and definitely
unintentionally humorous (see for example the “Casino Night” finale
from Season 2 in which he says, “I’m going to drop a deuce on
everyone”). He is subtly hilarious which is a testament to the
genius of Steve Carrell. Ricky Gervais perfected the
uncomfortable-ness of being an inappropriate person in the corporate
world. The key to both of these was subtleness in their acting and
the situations. The writers of both shows let the audience catch up
on things that they wouldn’t maybe get right off the bat, instead of
dealing with prat falls and obvious humor, as they had been for the
past few weeks. With this in my mind I sat down to watch the one
hour season finale.
No need to keep you in suspense. I thought the
season finale was awesome. Things pretty much clicked as they had in
the past and had enough “holy shit” moments to really make the
finale seem special. Unfortunately the finale came at the loss for
droopy faced and utterly hilarious Tobey, the direction the show is
taking is new and interesting. Michael’s love interest storyline
with the new HR person Holly (played by Amy Ryan from possible the
best show ever, “The Wire”) is fantastic and will hopefully provide
for some awesome and awkward moments next season. I also never
considered that Kevin could be construed for a retard after this
episode but it makes total sense. The big shockers came from Jan
getting pregnant (and I STILL would do her) and Phyllis walking in
on Dwight and Angela doing it, although Angela is visibly pregnant
which makes me feel bad for that baby. The Jim/Pam, Andy/Angela
thing is interesting and I am curious to see how it goes.
As far as negatives go, there were a couple. I
thought the way they wrapped up the Ryan storyline was a bit weak
and lacking, and I have no idea where this animosity came between
Ryan and Jim (something about Jim talking to David Wallace behind
Ryan’s back). It is not like the show to arbitrarily write in
something that did not occur before as a main plot point and then
just write it off immediately. It was a bit lame. The other thing
that bothered me was that the Jim/Pam storyline didn’t really have
any conflict besides him not proposing. If she is going to New York
for the summer, they needed to have a bit more of a conflict I
think. But that’s just me being a 50 year old lady watching the show
with her cats.
All in all, a pretty damn good episode and I’m
looking forward to next season, so that means the episode did its
job. B+
In other Office news, there is word that for the
Superbowl 2009, NBC is planning a spin-off show for the Office. So
they will just go to another office and do another show I guess.
This totally reeks of the brand split with the WWE and will NOT be
good for the show. Not only will the quality suffer, but it will
lead to “crossover” episodes that won’t really feel like that
because they aren’t really crossovers. Wouldn’t the new show just
try to take the old show and turn it on it’s head? Like having a
competent boss, a crappy worker, an ugly receptionist? See I can
write this stuff myself! But anyway, I am not looking forward to
this, because it totally reeks like a turd, and of NBC just wanting
to cash in on the show’s popularity. It will be “Smackdown” to Steve
Carrell’s “RAW”
MOVIE
MALADY
(Note that I never read any other movie reviews
when I write mine. I go in this with strictly my opinion, so feel
free to bash it as needed).
INDIANA JONES AND
THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL
Nostalgia. It rings true for us all. We always
think back with a fond remembrance of things past. Nostalgia
inherently makes you feel better than anything that is currently
happening in your life. It’s like a warm blanket that you wrap
yourself in. It’s that camping trip that you took with your entire
family. You spent the entire night chatting and reading ghost
stories to each other, making s’mores; falling asleep to the
crackling of firewood and the quiet that you only find in the
forest. And then your uncle molests you. This is kind of like what
the Indiana Jones series is like to me. You constantly remember the
movies being fantastic and wonderful and when you re-watch them, you
notice the campy lameness, and suddenly as the movies continue, the
revelation comes to you like that night in the sleeping bags, and
you feel violated. This is how the new Indy movie left me. I felt
like I had been violated.
I wasn’t a HUGE Indy fan, but I did love the
original movies. Who didn’t? They re-popularized the serial type
adventure films that fell out of popular culture/viewing since “The
Treasure of the Sierra Madre” and made you feel like you were
experiencing something so new and exciting. You were transported to
many different worlds and experienced and discovered ancient
artifacts along with Indy. Using the Grail and the Ark as macGuffins
were especially nice touches to the original movies. The villains
always had the fatal flaw that they shared with all dictators that
they worked for in that they were always working towards furthering
the Nazi way, but when it came down to it, they were so selfish they
always wanted the item for their own personal gain. As an Indy film,
the “Crystal Skull” works. It is fun, it transports you to many
different locations, the villains have the fatal flaw, and Indy is
just cool (albeit a bit crusty). But this move takes such a strange
transition, even for an Indy film, that it has left me basically
going, “bwuh?”
PLEASE NOTE THAT SPOILERS FOLLOW…There are two things I’ll probably never
know: 1) What the fuck is up with Steven Spielberg’s obsession with
aliens; 2) Why does George Lucas constantly feel the need to tarnish
storied franchises? I can probably answer #2, and that involves
money, and the feeling that with better technology, it can make for
more dynamic cinema. I will applaud Ford, Lucas and Spielberg for
sticking to old school film making techniques, and keeping the CGI
to a relatively low count (keeping in mind that this is a Lucas
produced flick). Ford apparently worked his ass off in the gym, and
it shows. For once, he actually looks alive. He plays Indy as a
grizzled, smirking, older man who doesn’t let anything get to him.
To say that he has simply matured is an understatement. Ford plays
him as a character that has seen it all (probably including “2 girls
1 cup”), and rarely lets his feathers get ruffled. This leads to
probably the most irritating conundrum the writers (Lucas for the
story and David Koepp for the screenplay, who in his own right has
hits and misses): how do you write a movie about a character who has
literally seen Nazi’s face melt, met an 800 year old knight, seen
more Nazi’s face melt, witnessed Hindu’s tearing out hearts of
living people, and hung out with that asian kid from “The Goonies”?
The answer: ALIENS! Print it! Another bald eagle omelet Senor
Spielbergo? Si!
I could BARELY handle Indy surviving a nuclear
blast at ground zero, early in the movie, while in a fridge because
it was lined in lead. And I thoroughly expect lead stock to sky
rocket in light of this. “You knew that lead could protect you from
having Superman look at your saggy balls, but did you also know that
lead can save you from a nuclear strike? You didn’t? Al Qaida! North
Korea! Iraq! Buy lead, it will save your life!” Bullshit. But I let
that go. I let go of the fact that the first 20 min of the movie are
really worthless and unnecessary, but fun. But what I keep coming
back to are the damn aliens. And Shia LeBeouf swinging with monkeys,
which just so happened to me the epitome of lame. Not only did he
share their same hairstyle (yes monkeys with pompadours) he then
proceeds to swing around the trees like Tarzan on speed in one of
the lamest visuals of recent memory. That was for sure NOT an Indy
moment. Shia is a good actor and he generally surprises me with his
solid performances (as in “Transformers” and even “Constantine”) but
something was lacking here. He was good, but not up to his usual
standards. Maybe he realized how much of a douche he looked like
swinging with Monkeys. Anyway, back to the story.
On paper it sounds like a cool idea. Aliens
helped the natives in Peru with their technology, spaceship is under
the temples, and the return of a crystal skull that could lead to
the road to El Dorado. The key (the skull) was supposed to lead them
to the golden city and what not, and they would have discovered
something cool, and another mystery of the world would have been
solved by Indy. That’s a good movie ending, I think. Shit they could
even have still had them replace the skull onto the alien and then
have the ship rise up and fly away revealing in the process that the
city of El Dorado was actually an alien spaceship, and as it flies
away, it takes the commies with them, and the city disappears never
to be seen again, but also proving that it existed, at one time.
It’s a great Indy ending. Then they could have had the crappy
wedding and everyone goes home happy, right? But that would be too
simple. They had to have their twists. Instead we get that the
“treasure” is knowledge: knowledge that plateaued at building a
temple (basically a garage) for the aliens to store their space ship
(keep in mind that these aliens are able to create multi dimensional
gates). I think communists already had this knowledge, or maybe they
didn’t which is why they collapsed and which is why Communist woman
blew up from the alien sticking all of his knowledge up inside her
(like Superman boning Louis Lane from “Mallrats”). On that note, how
the fuck did a Spanish conquistador ever manage to steal the head of
a crystal alien using sticks and spears versus the ever powerful
“knowledge”?
Indy movies thrived at being simple and also
during the conclusion of said movies, a conflict with Indy and his
faith. This movie lacked it, which made the entire conclusion that
much more lacking in drama. I guess it has to do with Indy being
older and his faith not wavering anymore, but when the Oxly had said
that the alien was going to give them a gift, how did Indy know that
they gift was going to be bad? Did he not have any urge at all to
know what it was, such as when he wanted to keep the Grail for
himself at the end of the “Last Crusade”? Is he just at the point
where not even finding a crystal alien skeleton, and a spaceship,
and a portal to another dimension, will faze him anymore? He sure as
fuck didn’t act like it. I guess that’s what happens when you’re
forced to watch Calista Flockheart’s tailbone bulge while your
rearing her: nothing fazes you after that!
Now, back to the movie. Don’t feed me any of
this suspension of disbelief mumbo jumbo. I am totally fine with
doing that, and have no issues with it at all. Indy movies always
require this, and I have never had a problem with it, until they
decided to take what COULD have been a simple, fun plot and twisted
it for some unknown reason and added another dimension and knowledge
killing the communists. There could be a metaphor in there somewhere
but I really don’t think Lucas and Koepp are that clever. This was a
good, solid, fun popcorn movie. But so was “Transformers” and “Iron
Man” and those were more fun than this. There was just some
cohesiveness and simplicity lacking in this that was present in all
the other Indy movies. The unnecessarily convoluted their plot, and
the beginning and ending seemed to show this. Lucas really should
have stuck with my idea for a movie.
GRADE: C+
RANDOM
MUSINGS
I was listening to my favorite southern
California morning radio show and they had a fun topic of Indiana
Jones vs. Han Solo. They made their arguments and decided that Indy
wins based on the vote of one Kevin Smith (the director) who called
in. The whole time I was voting for Han, so next column I will look
at this battle and will do a series of versus columns on what I deem
to be interesting. I know highly unoriginal, but it would be fun for
me to mock stuff that piss me off. I welcome any and all readers to
provide me with their suggestions as well. I will post a thread at
the Wrestling Fan message board as well.
I know I said I will have a GTA 4 review, but if
you haven’t read one by now, I highly doubt you are on the edge of
your seat waiting for mine, so I will get that to you all next
column. I will also have a list of my big annoyances in movies that
characters do. So until next time, have your kids spayed and
neutered.
