Who's Dat Behind the Goggles?

Whiteout-Kate Beckinsdale, Tom Skerritt









SEE?





See? What's to see? Let's think this through, shall we? You can have a suspense movie in a blizzard. You can have a horror movie in a blizzard. You can have a romantic comedy in a blizzard. You cannot have an action/murder mystery movie in a blizzard. Wanna know why? Well, let's start with action implies a fast pace. Unless your film is set on downhill skis, it really ain't gonna keep a great pace in the snow. Also, have you ever seen people fight in minus 50 degree temperatures? No. They have full winter gear on! It's hard to fight in full winter gear. Swing a icepick? Sure. That works for a while, but it gets a little predictable. Then again, kinda hard to swing a icepick in 35 mile per hour winds, but hey, "A" for effort. Watching people walk (or be "chased") while attached to a safety line. Not compelling cinema even with the icepick coming at 'em. How do I know it's the bad guy? Oh. He's carrying the icepick! I hope he doesn't drop it, or we're in for a really long movie.



I liked Kate Beckisdale as a vampire. She had guns (And, no, I don't mean nice arms.) She actually carried weapons. Gotta love a vampire who requires bullets. Here, Ms. Beckinsdale plays U.S. Marshall Carrie Stetko (running out of last names are we?) stuck in the worst job assignment on earth-roaming Antarctica's remote science stations to resolve minor crimes. Then, lo-and-behold, on the last day before the long and sunless winter (and with a terrible snowstorm fast approaching, certainly faster than the plot), the first Antarctic murder drops, literally, in her lap. First, let me thank our director and writers (beware any screenplay with four writers attached) for the unnecessary and barely tasteful shower scene featuring Ms. Beckinsdale. I was very happy to know that she could, in fact, get a hot shower in the South Pole. What the hell that had to do with anything, I couldn't tell ya. I mean she enters frame and, basically walks through the building and into the shower. Even I felt dirty lingering over her long, hot shower through steamy glass, and I'm a straight chick. Suffice to say, the men in the audience were happy, and I was provided with "tit-for-tat" in the blurry naked form (later betoweled) of Alex O'Loughlin. Frat boy scenes just never get old, I tell ya.





Having had the rather dubious privilege of watching Ms. Beckinsdale undress for her shower so early in the movie, I can tell you with some certainty that she could not possibly stand up straight in blizzard conditions, nevermind, take on a 6'1" icepick wielding psycho. What about her guns, you ask? Well, hey, you try holding a gun in a gloved hand and shooting straight in a blizzard. Take the gloves off? Are you crazy? It's Antarctica, silly. Wanna lose that hand? I won't even talk about that part of the movie. I will, however, ask you this. What kind of U.S. Marshall enters a room with a potential murder suspect without her weapon drawn? A British one. No self-respecting American playing a U. S. Marshall would let that happen. Didn't you watch The Fugitive, Kate? C'mon. And as for Tom Skerritt-will someone please get this man a role for cryin' out loud?




EAT



Top ramen. No idea why. Ms. Beckinsdale's character has it in her room and apparently it is highly coveted on these remote science stations. Good luck to you.




SHOP.




A better line of work. Seriously. If you are lucky enough to still be employed these days and you're still complaining about your job, let's review the gloriousness of working in Antarctica. 1.) WAAAAY below freezing. 2.) Dark six months of the year. 3.) Psycho icepick wielding freaks. Um. No, thank you. De-seize the freeze at http://www.jobster.com/find/US/jobs/in//for/warm+weather.

Sew Me a River.

Bright Star-Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw
Director-Jane Campion




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I don't understand poetry. I try. You wouldn't think it would be that hard. It's just words. I understand words. Usually. Apparently, I would have been hard pressed in the love game back in the day of John Keats. People were clever and well-read. People could recite literature and poetry by heart. Men wooed women with their wit. (Apparently, they didn't have Tivo.) But hey, I understand a well made garment, and I'm not so foolish as to believe just that anybody can sew a thing of beauty "to be a joy forever." Poetry? Pshaw. A perfectly fitted dress? Now that's impressive. Luckily for me, we don't spend too much time analyzing the works of Keats here (I would have been lost) and poring over the many tragedies that marred his life and shaped his work (I cried enough honestly.) Instead, Jane Campion pays homage to the beauty of sewing (an intrinsically artistic talent) and sets it on a par with the words of one of the most revered of the Romantic Poets. You go, girl!




Sure, I was moved by the relationship between Keats (Ben Whishaw) and Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), seamstress extraordinaire. Sure, I was saddened by the tragic and brief intersection of their lives. But mostly, I wanted to know why people back then seemed to think sewing is so damn easy?! Have they not seen Project Runway? Not everybody can sew a seam, my friends. Look, even I can make something rhyme. Just takes some time. But, no, I don't think Keats could have created that fancy party dress that Brawne wears. (Okay, I know. About a hundred seamstresses in a wardrobe department made that, but it's the principle!) Thanks to Campion's writing and direction, the audience can see that it is society which belittles Brawne's gifts as inconsequential in comparison with the writings of men. Brawne is a creative designer not just a darner of socks. Brawne takes her work as seriously as the poets in whose company she lives and demands perfection of even those simple things viewed as "women's work." Thank you, Jane Campion, for showing us that the clothier can produce a thing of equal beauty as the poet.




EAT.



Apparently, during Keats' illness he was alternately starved and bled or fed beef and wine. Choose the beef and wine. Unless you are a vegetarian. In which case, good luck with being bled.


SHOP.



Despite the popularity of Project Runway, some people still don't believe that sewing requires skill and artistry. Hurry up and find out for yourself. Apparently, September is National Sewing Month (Who decides these things?) "sew" express yourself (Sorry. Couldn't help it.) Read a little about the art of sewing versus the art of poetry http://www.openwriting.com/archives/2009/02/the_gentle_art.php then try it on for size. You might find it easier to produce a poem than sew a straight seam, but don't be discouraged. Stitch on up to http://www.sewing.org/.

Bad Employee

EXTRACT-Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck, Gene Simmons





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Let's take a minute to honor the American worker. Why, you ask? Isn't this a movie about a guy so disillusioned by his passionless marriage that he falls for a beautiful grifter with designs on bankrupting his company?! Yeah, yeah. Sure. That may be the story the trailer tried to sell you, but, in reality, this movie is a story about how the entitled American worker is making him/herself an endangered species. In this historic time of global economic difficult, the one universal truth that we can all count on is you'd better be good at your job. And being good at your job doesn't mean you'll get to keep it.

I mean unemployment isn't way up just because machines can do your job. Let's study the employees of the Reynolds Extract, and see what we American workers are doing wrong. First, we have Step, clearly he believes he is king of the company even though his only claim superiority is the rather dubious title "fastest sorter." Step represents the co-worker we all love to hate (unless we are, in fact, that coworker). He's the guy who can tell you best how to do your job even though he never seems to be doing his. Speaking of not working, we have Rory, a barely competent goth type who, when not destroying the product at his workplace, is plying his coworkers with flyers for his band's "concert." Let's not neglect management, we have to include Brian, the number 2 guy in the company who can't be bothered to learn any of the employees' names although he has a razor sharp memory for their faults. Finally there's Mary, a racist, know-it-all who delights in watching others fail as a means of proving how invaluable she is as a worker (how wrong she is.)


Why do we care about these people? We don't. Joel (Jason Bateman) wants nothing more than to leave this company he created behind and why? Because these people, his employees, are slack, over-entitled, incompetent meat puppets who have taken for granted the gift of earning a paycheck. Yet somehow, in the end (SPOILER ALERT), he comes to realizes that being the patriarch of this dysfunctional family is the best thing that's ever happened to him. No, I don't get it either. Please point me in the direction of the company that survives with that financial model. I need a new line of work.


EAT.

Make your own extract. Build your own company. And for cryin' out loud, please hire decent labor. Visit www.cooks.com and enter "make your own extract." Please don't make anything freaky.


SHOP.


Ambulance chasers. Sorry, once you've seen Gene Simmons play a low-life attorney, you're gonna want to get one of your own. Ball breaker, that one. Literally. Good news, there's an app for that. Visit www.sueeasy.com. May the best chaser win.

No Sympathy for the Devil

District 9-Starring-People we don't know.


Director-Neill Blomkamp




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So you're an alien species. Your spaceship stalls out over South Africa. The South Africans armed with bullets and helicopters somehow manage to transport you from your ship to the slums of South Africa (shockingly in a black neighborhood!). I guess your superior technology is no match for hot-fired lead? Years pass and your race has declined in this filthy refugee camp reduced to eating cat food and trash and lacking any apparent desire to fix the spaceship, overthrow the humans and go home. (Um, okay. 'Cause who wouldn't want to live like that?) Meanwhile, humankind-all of them-black, white and indifferent- seem to have developed a virulent, anti-alien bias. I mean don't we all look for somebody else to point the finger at when times are tough? Faced with growing "Not-In-My-Backyard" sentiment, an evil corporation (is there any other kind?) commences a mission to remove the alien beings to a far, far away refugee camp. During said mission, a hapless corporate employee with a fairly "anti-alien" attitudes stumbles upon the only alien (in a camp of thousands), Christopher, with the know-how and a plan to make the debilitated alien ship operable.


Our hapless corporate employee manages to avert the plan to repair the stalled mothership by confiscating a "mysterious alien fluid. " Sadly, Hapless has no idea what the fluid is or that the plot exists. If he'd known, he probably wouldn't have opened the container before turning it over to the evil corporation. But, he did, thereby releasing the fluid which begins to transform Hapless into one of THEM-a prawn-like alien. Bummer. But a perfect opportunity for our bigoted corporate employee to learn first hand about the horrible treatment and squalid living conditions of these poor alien beings. Why, one might even take this opportunity-becoming what you hate the most-to broaden one's horizons, open one's eyes, change one's views. But not if you're turning into an alien who looks like a giant green shrimp! Not if your hair, teeth and nails are falling out! Not if your hand is turning into a claw. Not if your skin is turning into green scales. Did Jeff Goldblum's character suddenly develop a new respect for insects in The Fly? No! He was jut totally grossed out by his transformation and desperately wanted to get back to the meat-eating, insect crushing human that he was before. Anyhoo...


...I'll skip the whole part about how the half human, half alien hapless corporate employee is used by the evil corporation (and his evil father-in-law) to operate alien weapons. That's not the most interesting part of the story. Not to me anyway. What's really interesting is how Hapless and Christopher, the only alien who can fix the ship (in a camp of thousands), overcome mutual mistrust and work together to regain control of the mysterious fluid that will make the ship operational again. Well, almost. I won't spoil too much of the fascinating subplots (alien-eating Nigerians, anyone?). You'll have to decide for yourself, but I was left a little empty. Perhaps it was the "reality" which left me empty. You must ask yourself, "Why does Hapless help Christopher? Is it really because he's understood how wrong mankind's treatment of the aliens is? Or is it because he's been promised a return to a normal human life (albeit in three years)?" C'mon. You know the answer. Doesn't it make you kinda sad? Nice try, Neill. Overly simplistic, but nice try.


EAT.

Well, I haven't dined upon any cat food lately, but they do seem to offer and amazing variety of flavors, and the aliens sure seem to like it! Okay, never mind. Trust me. You'll be okay without eating for quite some time after seeing this one.


SHOP.

How about a course in tolerance? Learn to accept the aliens in your neighborhood. Learn better communication skills. Maybe sample some of their preferred cuisine. Can't we all just get along? Here's to learning to love your inner prawn..I mean alien-http://www.training-classes.com/learn/_k/c/u/l/cultural_sensitivity/.

Generation Nice.

Children's Television-WTH!




Parents, this will be unbelievably offensive as I am not a parent.
You've been warned.





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So, I'd like to take a moment to depart from reviewing adult-oriented films, and express my concerns about what today's youth is watching. No. I'm not concerned that our little ones are watching too much foul-mouthed,violent, overtly sexual, morally complicated, cynical television. I'm concerned that they are not watching enough of it. Yeah. You heard me. Lookout, America. You reap what you sow, and you're sowing the seeds of Generation Nice. Sure. We want our little darlings to grow up with decent qualities that will render them capable of navigating the choppy waters of social acceptability. We also want them to be able to share with others and follow through with difficult tasks. And what a bonus if they can speak one or more languages fluently before they're in college. Thank you, Dora the Explorer! Si and yes.



When I'm in my twilight years and the world is rapidly sinking down the toilet (literally and figuratively), I may be comforted to know that my country is being capably run by the sweetest, most law-abiding, honest generation ever raised. And then again, I may not be. Maybe, I actually believe that not all things in this world are gained by being polite. Maybe, I want some ruthless, independent, get-it-at-all-costs c**ksuckers on my team. You know, like the innovative bastards who built this country because they were not suckled at their mothers' breasts until the age of thirty. Yes, there was thievery, racism, sexism, hell, every "ism" in the book used to make this country a superpower, but that's not what I'm advocating. I'm looking for the qualities of endurance, perseverance coupled with nerve, innovation and desire. I'm looking for the leaders not the followers in today's youth. And what I'm seeing frightens me.


We place our children in front of television screens and have them watch animated movies and TV shows designed to impart "life lessons" through the eyes of their favorite fluffy characters. Heaven forbid we shove them outside with some sunscreen and a curfew and tell them to use what's left of their imagination for a change. Maybe, if we didn't isolate our children inside, I wouldn't be forced to watch remakes of movies and TV shows that I already saw in their original format-yeah, I'm that old. Maybe our kids wouldn't be whiny zombies whose only ambition is in finding the path of least resistance.


Hey, here's a thought (before I have to watch one more Sleeping Beauty, Dora the Explorer, Wonder Pets DVD with my niece.) Life is hard. Making it easy or even easier for kids than you had it is the legacy of all parents I suppose, but you aren't doing your kids or yourselves or your planet any favors by holding your kids' hands all damn day. After I played outside(!), my parents sat me down in front of two of the most boring shows a child could watch the McNeill-Lehrer News Hour and/or 60 Minutes. My parents were not afraid for me to see blood, conflict and good versus evil in the real world because the real world is where I was going to be living. (Oddly, my mother always covered my eyes for certain parts of the Kung Fu television series, but who can blame her?)


Yeah, it's sweet teaching our kids to share with others, to be nice, to be bilingual, to save baby dolphins trapped in fishing nets. These are all admirable traits and goals, and I'd love to see my niece go save some dolphins in the ocean with her cartoon pets while speaking Spanish. NOT THE REAL WORLD. (Well, the Spanish part is.) At what age do you introduce reality? At what age do you stop our children from worrying about imaginary monsters and start focusing their attention on facing real problems? I say, don't wait too long. You do them a disservice by shielding from the world they live in instead of showing them yourselves how to use the best tools to navigate this world and perhaps even be independent and savvy enough to change it for the better. Parents may point to a show like Gossip Girl and think their kids are growing up too soon. I assure you Gossip Girl is no measure of adulthood, and your kids may need to grow up sooner than you think.










EAT.





Adult food. Time to stop catering to what the kiddies say they want to eat. When your kid gets to the school cafeteria, she will not be offered whatever her little heart desires so time to toughen her up. Enough picky eaters. Serve 'em a steak or chicken wing or a tofuburger for all I care, but it's time to cowboy up!








SHOP.





Let's start small. Ease your kid into the adult world with a morning news show (it's hardly news at all) then work your way to the nightly stuff. Teach your kids that bad things happen, personal responsibility is as important as working with others and humor helps us all to survive in tough times.