...of charm and strange: the blog

I'm going out of town in about five minutes, and I had this Thanksgivingy thing I was going to post on the website today, but my computer is having its revenge on me for all the times I've turned it off without shutting it down first, and it won't let me update. So...mild disappointment, but whatever. Have a happy Turkey Day, everyone! Unless you are a turkey, in which case my prayers go out to your slaughtered loved ones.

1. ben affleck chewing tobacco
2. writing dude fucking blog engaged guy 7th grade
3. offensive halloween costumes [heh]
4. lumps appearing near asshole grapes
5. hanging noose furries
6. extremely short woman
7. cat in the hat fucked up
8. moms jacking off there sons [!]
9. nun clown
10. frontal catalogue abercrombie fitch gay glamour

Grade: 8
Subject: English
Description: Worksheet dealing with the use of metaphors. The ones I've come up with here are so stunningly awful that I'm surprised my writing career was allowed to continue by any of my teachers.

There's going to be a straight-to-video second sequel to Species. That's not even the best part, though. Here's the plot summary:

"The new film will follow the exploits of not one but two female part-alien, part-human creatures: Sara, the daughter of Eve and a nearly perfect species raised in the laboratory of Dr. Abbot, and Amelia, who is not as perfect a specimen as Sara, and is willing to do anything to regenerate her rapidly decaying body."

Eric: Oh, PLEASE. She's willing to do "anything" to regenerate her rapidly decaying body.

David: How much do you want to bet that "anything" will involve making out with the other female alien for at least 15 minutes of screen time?

Eric: And there will be a scientist who says, "If their salivas mix, our species is done for!" And then Michael Madsen or whoever else is slumming at the moment will have to hunt them down in a dance club where everyone is naked and freaking.

David: And both of them will look like supermodels and tilt their head down and glare a lot because Hollywood is obsessed with Hot Female Villains Who Never Smile And Will Kill You With Computer-Generated Parts.

Eric: And they're always naked at some point in the movie, because that's how evil they are! They don't care if they're naked! They just want to kill!

David: I don't know how they can even take this project seriously. How was anyone ever convinced that the world needed another Species movie?

Eric: I love how they describe Amelia as "no-nonsense" later in the article. That's just classic.

David: Yeah, not like the other alien-sex-and-killing-machines, who were at heart quite frivolous and fun-loving.

Eric: At least Natasha Henstridge got out of the series with her fame intact.

David: What? What are you talking about?

Eric: No, I'm totally kidding.

David: What do you think Natasha Henstridge is doing right now?

Eric: Crying.

David: Wearing clothes?

Eric: Nope.

David: I thought so.

I have no words. Except for "NO." And "EEEEEEEEEW."

Hello my dear Mary,

I have been thinking about you all night. I would like to apologize for the other night when we made beautiful love and did not use condoms. I know this was a mistake and I beg you to forgive me.

I miss you more than anything, please call me Mary, I need you. Do you remember when we were having wild sex in my house? I remember it all like it was only yesterday. You said that the pictures would not come out good, but you were very wrong, they are great. I didn't want to show you the pictures at first, but now I think it's time for you to see them. Please look in the attachment and you will see what I mean.

I love you with all my heart, James.

My favorite part of this email is the exposition in the beginning. My second favorite part is the way James thinks that showing Mary the sex pictures will make her forgive him for not using condoms.

Our hearts go out to you, James. Now chase her to the airport, show her those sex pictures, and win back her heart!

There was a drug bust at my old high school last week.

I remember being in high school and how it would make me feel when things like this happened. It was never sobering, or scary, or shocking; instead, I would somehow hope that this disruption in the soul-sapping routine of everyday high school life would put an end to it completely, as if the administrators would somehow decide that the school year could no longer continue after such an anomaly.

In other words, it was exciting! It was exciting to imagine that even a single day of school might be cancelled over...anything. I guess I figured that if the chain of miserable day after miserable day was suddenly and unexpectedly broken, it wouldn't know how to repair itself. It didn't make a whole lot of sense.

And it wasn't just drug busts: snow, earthquakes, thunderstorms, a power outage for any reason -- they would all inspire this bizarre conviction in me that they wouldn't make us go back to business as usual after something like this, right? Of course, they always did. And right up until my last day of high school, I continued to cling to the hope that maybe school would be cancelled tomorrow because a strong wind blew over some of our lawn chairs last night.

From today's IMDb celebrity news:

Crowe Accused of Attacking Waitress
An angry waitress has accused Russell Crowe of launching a foul-mouthed attack on her after she offered him a snack. Vanessa Boni was working at a London party to celebrate the release of the Australian actor's new movie Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World when she approached him with a tray of salmon nibbles. But the temperamental star, who was chatting to singer Sting and his wife Trudie Styler when the alleged incident occurred, reacted furiously to the 20-year-old servant -- much to the shock of his celebrity pals. She says, "I was in a special VIP room and offered him a snack. But he said to me, 'F*** off, with your f***ing salmon.' I was completely and utterly shocked and just walked away. Sting and Trudie also looked shocked. I refused to serve him for the rest of the night and made a formal complaint. There was no evidence he was drunk -- it was early in the evening. It was just outrageous."

Eeeeeeeee! I can't wait for this. I've been hearing about this movie adaptation for years, but it never occured to me that the project might get off the ground (with Emma Thompson as the Angel!). Check out the trailer, and various other video, here.

UPDATED: I just secured a ticket to a screening of the first three hours of Angels in America at the Cinerama on Monday! Today is a good day.

There are now officially 11 contenders for this year's Best Animated Feature Oscar. I think it's pretty much a forgone conclusion that Finding Nemo is going home with the prize, right? Everyone loves the Nemo. Well, two people don't like the Nemo. But they can suck it.

What I'm more concerned about are the other two potential nominees. You see, I'm still bitter at the fact that Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius beat out the beautiful and mesmerizing Waking Life for the nomination two years ago, which indicates to me that this category is seen as more of a "Best Kids' Movie" kind of award and not taken as seriously as it should be. You know I think animation is underrated as an art form, and I think that's largely a result of this direct association with bad childrens' entertainment. The problem is, that's mostly what we use it for here in America.

They should judge this race by a process of elimination. Right away, Brother Bear, The Jungle Book 2, Pokemon Heroes (!), Piglet's Big Movie, Looney Tunes: Back In Action, and Rugrats Go Wild! ought to be stricken from the list. IMMEDIATELY. Then we can move on from there.

Moviepie piles on the hate in the form of Seussical verse. Woo!

"The movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash, we might as well stop going."

This quote from Kael was used in Roger Ebert's review of Gothika, and when I become president of the MPAA (die, Jack Valenti, die!), I will make it our official motto. This doesn't even make me want to see Gothika particularly, but I strongly appreciate the sentiment. (Er, of the quote, not the new Halle Berry thriller.) I just think that if it's gonna be bad, it's gotta be good, you know?

Actually, this issue is more strongly related to an article from Time that denounces book snobs for insisting on a thick black line between "high" and "low" literature as opposed to simply "good" or "bad." So I'm adding, "Down with movie snobs!" to the battle cry, because while "good" and "artsy" both have their benefits, I don't believe they're synonyms.

I'm telling you this mostly because I rented View from the Top two weeks ago and I ENJOYED IT AND I'M NOT SORRY.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!

Ahh, sweet victory. I would have given up movies altogether if The Cat In the Hat had pulled a "Master and Commander" and gotten stellar reviews despite my brave and tireless crusade against it. Thank goodness I'm not completely wrong about everything this season.

Unfortunately, there is no accounting for the horrendous tastes of the moviegoing public, as demonstrated by the jaw-dropping fact that How the Grinch Stole Christmas was the #1 box office grosser of 2000.

So I saw another trailer for The Cat In the Hat (or it could have been the same one, and I just missed it the first time) and finally saw what everyone was talking about, where his hat booinggg!s up. You know, LIKE A BONER. BECAUSE THERE IS A HUGE FUCKING CAT DICK ON TOP OF HIS HEAD, ERUPTING RIGHT OUT OF HIS SKULL.

Dakota Fanning will become a teenage crackwhore like Drew Barrymore after this because being on the set of this movie must have been the most damaging experience known to man. And she'll still have flashbacks until the day she dies. Jesus, I'm about to turn to drugs just so I can forget I saw that trailer.

The Cat In the Hat turns Dakota Fanning into a teenage crackwhore, y'all. That ain't right. Therefore, don't let this movie become the #1 box office grosser of 2003.

(Also, thanks to Cleolinda for letting me pilfer the title.)

UPDATED: I have just been notified that this film contains a RAVE SCENE. Featuring PARIS HILTON. Jesus Christ, people. Why not take it to the next level, Bo Welch? Why not just splice in footage from her sex tape instead? That would be staying true to the "spirit" of Dr. Seuss, right? I mean, you've gotta keep the parents entertained somehow. Because God forbid anyone make a family film that entertains adults and children alike just by being good.

We started studying surrealist cinema in my film class today. I just finished reading a 26-page analysis of the movement and it was one of those things where I sat there afterward and thought, I have NO IDEA what I just read. Perhaps the book was, in fact, a piece of surrealist art. However, I'm more inclined to think it just sucked.

I'm not going to lie about this, either: I think surrealism sucks a fat one. THERE, I SAID IT. My annoyance with the whole business is doubled by the fact that one is assumed to be shallow and stupid if one doesn't "appreciate" it. (Okay, yes. I will admit that I am guilty of taking a similar stance when it comes to some specific movies. And... Well, that's not what we're talking about right now, so shut up.) And it seems like the more ridiculous and nonsensical "art" gets, the dumber you are assumed to be if you don't think it's the most groundbreaking thing ever.

As an introduction to surrealist cinema, the professor had us watch Entr'Acte and Un Chien Andalou. One of these films is famous for a scene in which a man slices open a woman's eyeball with a razorblade. I think elements like these (not to mention disturbing amounts of misogyny) bother me because the text's main assertion was that surrealism is built upon the idea that "the world is full of marvelousness, love, and laughter." If failing to yuk it up while a woman is attacked by a man pulling two grand pianos containing bloody animal corpses is shallow, I don't want to be deep.

I am aware that you're supposed to keep an open mind with these kinds of things, and that you're supposed to be receptive to forms of expression outside your comfort zone. But as I sat there in the classroom, watching footage of a camel pulling a funeral carriage, intercut with what appeared to be Peter Jackson prancing around in a tutu, I was like, What's really going on here?

Remember when I went to see Myra's War? Yeah, it was like that. I understand that the whole point of surrealism is to not make sense, to not have meaning, to not have layers of significance underneath it all. So crucify me if I think that sounds like a shitty night at the movies.

So, that's my (probably unfair) beef with surrealism. From where I'm standing, the Emperor ain't wearing any clothes, y'all. We'll be lectured on these films tomorrow, and it's going to take every ounce of willpower in my body not to stand up and start a revolt in the classroom.

Professor: ...and that's how emotional turmoil about World War II is embodied in this film.

Eric: What is wrong with you people? It was a guy molesting a girl's chest and drooling blood, and a bunch of people hopping around a funeral in slow-motion. That's not art, that's bad porn.

[long, uncomfortable pause]

Professor: [dashes out of the room, heads for the Mexican border]

Exchange-related reader mail wasn't the only thing I found in my inbox today. It appears that the nun-clown has groupies:

Hey Eric!

I'm still strangely obsessed with the nun-clown. It is the greatest thing I have ever seen. I printed out a couple of the pictures and now the nun-clown is wreaking havoc at my office. Anyway, I wanted to ask if I could have your permission to use one of the pictures to make a t-shirt. I think I need to have one. What is a better Christmas gift than a nun-clown t-shirt? Do you mind? And do you have any other pics? Thanks!

Pam

So, I was thinking. What if this is how I become famous? What if it has nothing to do with talent or ambition? What if this is the tip of Nun-Clown Mania iceberg? I mean, picture an office full of people wearing t-shirts with the nun-clown on them. It's kind of terrifying.

I suddenly see myself in five years writing an underground comic detailing the adventures of Nun-Clown. No, wait, I'm just seeing the American Splendor comics starring Nun-Clown instead of Harvey Pekar. I don't know what this means.

I just wanted to publicly acknowledge the awesomeness of everyone who emailed me regarding my "to study abroad, or not to study abroad" conundrum. I totally wasn't expecting a response like this, but you guys have been great and had tons of helpful stories, input, and advice to offer.

You people rock. That's all.

(And yes, the title is a joke.)

Yesterday's batch of celebrity news blurbs on the IMDb embodies everything I love about this trashy pleasure. It's the first site I check every morning, which is completely depraved, but I love it and I'm not sorry and you don't know my life. Anyhoo, here is my favorite from yesterday:

Juliette Lewis Rocks Out
Natural Born Killers star Juliette Lewis showed off her rock chick credentials with a wild performance at ex-love Johnny Depp's club earlier this week. The normally polished actress looked a far cry from her smooth red carpet persona as she donned skin-tight jeans and a miniscule breast-covering top to perform with her band The Licks. Juliette took to the stage for a surprise set at Los Angeles' Viper Room, and gave a raunchy performance, even getting down on her knees and howling into the microphone. One surprised onlooker says, "Apart from her jeans, Juliette was hardly wearing a stitch. It wasn't the most flattering of tops to wear, especially with her not-so-curvy figure."

I love this one because Juliette Lewis gets down and rocks with her band, they spend the whole paragraph describing the performance, and the most insightful audience feedback they cared to include was, "That wasn't a good top for her." That's some great journalism right there.

New (actually two days late) article about the year I may or may not be spending in Scotland next year. To go, or not to go? And not in a Chinese restaurant kind of way, either.

My mother's obsession with The Matrix reached unprecedented proportions tonight when we went out to see The Matrix Revolutions. Her head almost exploded with sheer amazement at it all. She can't get enough of the whole series, even though she has to sit us down afterward so we can explain most of it to her. When we do, she gets excited all over and insists on seeing them again.

My mother has this hilarious way of being simultaneously captivated by the depth and spectacle of The Matrix and concerned with smaller-scale logistics.

Mom: So the actress who used to be the Oracle died?

Me: Yeah. Of diabetes.

Mom: Diabetes! Oh my god. It must be all those damn cookies she eats.

Then there's the way she cried rivers when Trinity died in Revolutions, but also observed afterwards, "She talked a lot for a person impaled in ten places." She applies the standards of reality in such funny ways. "And her nose is so pointy," she added skeptically. "Why would Neo like her?" She'll buy everything else in the movie, but not that. Hee!

From Entertainment Weekly's "Must List": "Shattered Glass: Hayden Christensen and Peter Sarsgard shine in this splendid new film, made on a budget of $309 and directed by the precocious 12-year-old daughter of a Hopi chief."

Okay. I sat there for a solid minute after reading this, thinking, Wow, that's amazing! I shit you not, I was this close to running into the next room to share this fascinating tidbit with David before I finally got the joke.

ARE YOU LAUGHING, EW? DOES IT FEEL GOOOOOOOOOOD TO LAUGH AT ME? Fuckers.

Shit, dude. This isn't even funny. You don't do things like this to an innocent baby, even if it's only for a movie. Nothing deserves to be that close to Ben Affleck's face. Also, from where I'm standing, it looks like Ben Affleck's chin eats babies, y'all. That ain't right.

The rest of the stills here are even more chilling. Isn't it only a matter of time before this and this become horrifying realities on the covers of entertainment magazines and tabloids everywhere?

UPDATE: Miramax ordered the removal of its stills from Empire Movies, so you "unfortunately" can't see what I'm talking about, which is kind of like saying, "Sorry, the power's out. We can't give you the chair today."

It's been a dishearteningly dry couple of weeks for the blog, but I thought I'd point you in the direction of the few things I've gotten up elsewhere on the internet since getting over the flu:

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, Chasing Liberty, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, and The Company reviewed for the Trailer Park.

Hair and Now and Break it Down up on the website.

I walked into the bathroom to blow my nose today, and I heard a voice coming from somewhere in the bathroom. At first, I thought it might have been two people talking, but then I realized that the only other person in the bathroom was a man talking on his cel phone while taking a crap. In his most customer-servicey voice, he was saying, "No, that's fantastic, Vickie. That sounds great. Okay, I'll see you then, Vickie. Bye-bye."

All I've been able to think about for the rest of the day was how many times someone might have been crapping while talking on the phone with me without my knowledge. I've decided that pretty much anybody who is very polite to you on the phone is probably crapping. I knew I didn't trust cel phones for a reason.

Seriously, dude.

Grade: 8
Subject: English
Description: Curse poem. The teacher gave us the first two lines and then told us to make it a complete poem. This is actually pretty fucked up.

If I could put a curse on you
I would have a laugh or two
May your hair combust in flames
May your folks forget your name
May your dog whose name is Rover
Meet a truck and get run over
May your friends desert your side
And say you make them want to hide
May you fail the SS final ["That's 'Social Studies,' y'all." -- Eric 2003]
May you break your mother's china
May you get a terminal disease
That makes your body swarm with fleas
May a spider bite your neck
May you die and go to Heck
May an anvil land on your head
And squish you till you're nearly dead
And then I'll take a can of Mace
And spray it empty in your face
May you tumble down a pit
And never climb out of it
Break your leg and sprain your knee
That would make me laugh with glee!
Gouge your eyes out with a fork
May your girlfriend call you a dork
Take a razor and shave you bald
Swear and cuss when you are called
Then I'll stab you with a knife
And then you'll lose your life
Smack your head with a crowbar
Dump your body where the cows are ["This is some bad rhyming up in here." -- Eric 2003]

These two things are making me question everything I thought I knew about this year's holiday movie season. Seriously, if fucking Elf is getting 81% on the Tomatometer, I don't know what's real anymore. Maybe The Matrix was a documentary. Do I really live in a world where fucking Elf is getting 81% on the Tomatometer? Okay, so I haven't seen it. But still, y'all. Elf. EEEEEEEEEEEELF.

It might still be too early to tell with Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (a title which should be sent to stand in the corner with such other hideous monikers as K:19: The Widowmaker and Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever). There are only 14 reviews up, but some of them are big ones -- Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Rolling Stone. They're all totally jacking off over this movie, which makes me want to barf because seeing this trailer and crying over its badness has been a fact of my life for as long as I can remember. How much of a waste would that be if it turned out to be good? Plus, I crack everyone up with my impression of Russell Crowe's badness in the trailer. "Ouah enemy has more than twice ouah guns, more than twice ouah numbahs! And my bloated face has more than twice the surface area of China." (Please note that by "I crack everyone up," I really mean "I say it to myself and giggle, then proceed to burn with resentment that I am not yet an international comedy sensation.")

I can't even think of a fun title, I'm so sick. I felt this coming on since Sunday, and I probably deserve it, after staying up all night two nights in a row this weekend. I tried to go to school on Monday, but had to bail after one class because my sniffling and hacking was impeding everyone else's learning experience. I went home, put on several layers of clothing, which felt like they were made of needles, crawled under two blankets, and still felt like I was dying of hypothermia. I haven't really left since.

Everyone in my family is sick except for my mother. There are times when my father and two brothers and I just sort of wander the house like zombies. We ought to be staying in bed as much as possible, and we do, but the urge to comiserate often gets the better of me and so I shuffle into David's room just to glare at him, and he understands that I'm really glaring at the flu, and we feel slightly less wretched.

I told David how my abdominal muscles were killing me from all the coughing, and he replied, apparently sincerely, "Well, at least you're getting a workout." I hadn't thought of it that way. Then I responded, "And we're not really eating anything, either!" This totally cheered us up in some sadistic way. We were like, people pay money to visit spas and feel the way we do right now. Then we marveled at all the money we were saving and watched The Osbournes for five hours.

Grade: 7
Subject: Drama
Description: Monologue to be performed by a sock puppet named "Anthug." The sock puppet was actually part of the assignment, then we had to write and perform a monologue as the character. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure I never go to perform this one in front of the class, because it's not even finished, and there's a big red X and the word "NO!" written on the paper by the teacher.

"My name is Anthug. My parents dropped me when I was a baby and I was permanently damaged. So they threw me over the edge of a bridge. I was soon found by a bunch of sewer rats and they ate off some of my hair, kiling the hair follicles in certain places. ["I remember putting that in to justify the crappy job I did attaching Anthug's yarn hair." -- Eric 2003] They kept me for a while, nibbling on various parts of me until I became hideously deformed. When I was 5, I crawled away and started a band."

Okay, I've always been partial to Abercrombie & Fitch's bizarre ad campaigns because they usually involve a tsunami of overt homoeroticism, but I believe a serious line has been crossed here. I fear The Cat In the Hat may be their fall catalogue.

On the Pacific Place building in downtown Seattle, there's a huge Kenneth Cole banner with a picture of a well-dressed man, and he's wearing a set of handcuffs, and at the bottom it says, "Prisoners of fashion." That just makes my head hurt. I can only imagine what's going to come next: "Knocked up by fashion." "Mauled by fashion." "Tortured for 30 days and 30 nights in an enemy fashion camp."

Mom: [solemn] Eric, can I talk to you?

Eric: Sure, mom, what is it?

Mom: Well... I've been thinking about that movie I watched last night.

Eric: What is it you want to talk about?

Mom: Why did Neo wake up in a slime capsule after taking the blue pill?

Eric: Excuse me?

Mom: I don't understand The Matrix.

Eric: Oh. Well, the blue pill made him wake up in the real world.

Mom: But wasn't he in the real world before?

Eric: No, that was the matrix. That was the computer program.

Mom: I don't get it.

Eric: He was in the slime capsule thing all along.

Mom: No, he wasn't. He worked at a computer company. I saw him.

Eric: No, that was the matrix.

Mom: So it wasn't real?

Eric: No, his mind thought it was, but it was just a computer program.

Mom: Oh my. [looks grave]

Eric: Yeah, well.

[long pause]

Mom: So I have another question. What is "The One"? What does that mean? The One who is good at computers?

Eric: Uh...kind of. I'm not sure.

Mom: You didn't get it either?

Eric: Not really.

Mom: That Keanu Reeves is so handsome. He looks like your brother.

David: [from upstairs] Moooooooooom!! Stop saying that!

I posted a new article so y'all can feast your eyes on some nun-clown pictures, and the story behind them. Man, I've looked at these pictures dozens of times and I'm still startled at how unholy and disturbing they are. I expect picketers any day now.