A Whiter Shade of Guile - Joe Queenan writes about the whole white-people-save-black-people-from-themselves movies, and in a really funny way. "If there is anything black people the world over have learned from Hollywood - and there isn't a whole lot - it's that no matter how bleak the situation seems, they can always rely on some resourceful, charismatic and, in some instances, shapely white person to bail them out."

It's been a long time since I've read Queenan, who was snark-incarnate before "snark" became the most overused word on the Internet. I remember him because he used to write for Movieline - the well-written, funny, honest magazine before it got bought out and turned into a worse version of Premiere. Before it got bought out, Movieline was (in)famous for its annual sex issues, and the Jennifer Lopez interview where she insulted almost everyone in Hollywood before she broke out.

Dammit, now I'm on a total nostalgia trip. Salon did a short profile of the magazine some years back. Some of my other favorite writers from that era of magazine-goodness were Stephen Rebello - see interview with Steven Soderbergh, and Martha Frankel - see interview with Christopher Walken, who I also remembered for her interview of Leonardo DiCaprio before he hit it big, and for her rant about how Hollywood portrays pregnancy in movies. I can't find that article, but I remember her revealing that she and her best friend started taking birth control pills before they even really knew what sex was because they were so freaked out by the consequences of Hollywood-depicted sex. There's one part where she describes a movie where the protagonist has to decide whether to save the baby, which means the mother will die, or save the mother and the baby will die and the lead of course decides to save the baby because killing the baby would be a sin and she writes something like "These are my choices? No thanks!"

And there was also Edward Margulies, the former editor, who also co-wrote a feature with Stephen Rebello called "Bad Movies We Love".

Good stuff.

I saw Borat today. It is really fucking funny, but I would not recommend a second viewing. A lot of the humor is dependent on the element of surprise. The Rolling Stone magazine I bought actually had as the main feature a lengthy interview with Sasha Baron Cohen (as himself), and it's pretty fascinating. He claims that the ideas for his characters came to fruition when he realized how upper-class, white people would often just keep being polite instead of telling him to shove off or something.

I think I am, however, traumatized by the two naked hairy men scene...

30 Rock is also really fucking funny. I kept bugging Mark to TiVo it, but it conflicted with one of his shows. Good thing the show switched their timeslot, because now we can watch it. I love Tina Fey and I actually would occasionally watch SNL when she did Weekend Update. It's not really comparable to Studio 60 (which, even though I like it, is the preachiest of the preachy liberal shows I watch, including Boston Legal. Boston Legal survives not being most preachy because of the power of James Spader's charisma. ^_^) But I love the humor of the show - weird and nonsensical and yet utterly relatable. "I am a robot. I am a stabbing robot." - had us both rolling on the floor.

Aisha Tyler is my favorite guest reviewer for the Ebert & Roeper show. (Note to all male movie critics: PLEASE STOP TELLING US HOW YOU MASTURBATE.) She has almost the same taste as mine in movies - a tendency to like the violent action, good comedy, and occasionally fall for the chick flick. And plus she recommended Infernal Affairs right before The Departed came out. I also liked Kevin Smith, who I think should actually be a full time movie critic - it's obvious that he absolutely loves movies, and he's a great analyst, and he judges movies the Ebert way - on what a movie is trying to be - whether it's an action flick or period piece or kid's movie, and not whether each movie is The Greatest Movie Ever. I liked A.O. Scott, too - he seemed pretty laidback.

Mark's been getting way into Six Feet Under - Bravo is re-running it a lot, so he just TiVos the episodes. I haven't really been watching it - and have been skimming off and on. But dude, full on gay characters acting like real people! I like it so far, and I like all the characters a lot. If I could remember their names I'd say a lot more about them.

We walked into Savvy Cellar after watching the movie. Redwood City is undergoing some gentrification, and their new downtown is still quiet, but attracting more people these days. The place is a wine shop/wine bar that's been open for about a year where you can do wine tastings or bring a bottle home. The cool thing about it is that all the wines are priced reasonably at $39 or less, and they are all rated 90 points or more by leading wine critics. Now, even though I like wine, and have only started to seriously learn about it in the past year or two, I still know next to nothing. I had a great Riesling - the owner was working at the time and she poured me a full glass that I didn't even finish halfway. Mark had a Cabernet Sauvignon. They also had a little snack menu, but we'd just eaten popcorn at the movies, so we didn't get anything. They also had memberships - for $49.95 you would get two bottles a month, discounts on wines, wine classes, 75% off private party events, etc. There was one Asian gentleman who kept pushing us to buy - he was a realtor, and he wasn't even working for the place but he was giving us the hard sell - every ten minutes he would say, "So, you getting a membership? Buy today!" He was actually getting on the owner's nerves and she told him to stop bugging us and to let us drink in peace. It was surreal because every single salesperson in China was like that. We also chatted with a really drunk indie girl who went on and on about blood diamonds, so much so that I almost turned my own ring around.

We didn't get a membership, but we'll probably go back or bring some friends to kick it there. (Note to our nerd friends: free wireless!) I'm really wary of getting sucked in to things like that. We still don't have a Netflix account, even though we've been meaning to get one for like the past two years. I actually really like our local video store - they have a good selection (good bit of Asian movies, which I like), and reasonable prices and late fees, and they don't censor stuff like Blockbuster does.

A different perspective on the movie.

I watched the movie last night. I frankly, just ignore the racial stuff as much as possible, because otherwise thinking about it makes me distracted and drives me crazy. Yes, the one black guy dies, but you knew that was coming, right? The few Chinese people who are supposed to be mobsters working for the Chinese government speak American accented Cantonese instead of Mandarin and don't do anything. Jack Nicholson's Frank Costello is a racist mob boss, his racism made explicit by the first scene where he uses the n-word. (Is it really necessary to do that? Some would argue, yes, it is, because we need to see that Costello doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks, but by the time we get to the part where he rants against the Chinese mobsters, I'm starting to think it's not that it's necessary, it's that it's fun for the writers and directors to have someone to express their prejudices in a way that won't allow other people to call them racist because a bad guy is saying the words. I'm going to call them racist anyway. Frankly, if they were going for gritty realism, the mobsters would have shot him in the middle of that rant. Just saying.)

So aside from that stuff, I will call the movie good but not better than the original. Mark cannot say anything because he doesn't remember the original, but I had the original running through my head the entire night. Some of the lines were lifted completely from the original; the plot elements remain the same, but the order and execution are different.

The original was much more concise, and the acting tended to happen more inside the head of the characters rather than the outside. I thought this version could have cut out a half-hour of exposition. One of the things I loved about the original were all the quiet moments - Andy and Tony sitting in the same shop with the headphones, the first moments when Andy decides to call Tony and tap some Morse code, etc. There are very few moments like that in this movie; everything is made explicit and violent, especially on Leondardo DiCaprio's side. I thought most of the major actors did a great job with what they had - I didn't like watching Jack Nicholson because he was essentially playing the Joker and not a mob boss. Hello, you should have gone with John Goodman! Or maybe that guy from History of Violence. The psychologist is used more here, but not in a way that I liked - she's essentially nothing more than a foil for both characters and doesn't really have anything else to do besides react. Geography is really central to the plot here, more than it is in the Hong Kong movie, and the issues of race are more prevalent, but the director doesn't really go anywhere with the race issue besides Racism! Bad!

Writing this makes it seem like I enjoyed the movie a lot less than I did, but I actually did enjoy it a lot. Reading ReAppropriate's entry this morning just made me realize there were a lot of things I hadn't thought about while watching it, because I tend to compartmentalize those issues a lot. I really like what they did with Mark Wahlberg's character, who doesn't seem to have an analogous character in the original. But he's funny. This one has a lot more humor in it than it did in the original. It was actually quite interesting to see this with a packed audience - I could hear them gasping at the high-tension points. The ending is mostly the same, but I thought it could have ended a lot sooner than it did.

It's easier for me to deal with sexism than it is to deal with racism. Is that weird?

The Departed got really good reviews. I need to watch the Chinese version again, and yes, I'll even willingly admit this remake is good if I see it. Better? Um...

Watching Kevin Smith review movies on Ebert & Roeper is awesome, because 1. he keeps insulting Roeper, 2. he actually has good taste and is very articulate about the stuff he does and doesn't like (why he can't translate that great perspective to his non-Jersey-type movies I don't know), and 3. his video pick was Battlestar Galactica.

I visited the Bloomingdale's in San Francisco that just opened today with some friends. The power went out in one of the sections and they closed early. I don't think I'll be shopping there much, given that everything's really expensive.

I had Mark TiVo Ugly Betty, because I heard it was good. It's a remake of a telenovela, which explains the Latino cast. I liked it, and Salma Hayek is one of the executive producers. I found it hard to watch, though - it's the same reason I can't watch either versions of The Office - so much awkwardness and humiliation.

We went to see Crank yesterday. IT ROCKED. (Do not confuse this with a recommendation.)

One of the trailers was for Fearless, Jet Li's "last martial arts movie". My family has it, but I haven't watched it yet. The guy who directed it also directed "Bride of Chucky". My sister said it was kind of boring.

I think Aisha Tyler should replace Roeper on the show. I will love her forever for not recommending one, but two martial arts movies, and she recommended Infernal Affairs.

She needs to own her opinions, though - when she mentioned that she thought one of the movie directors was "borderline misogynistic", she backtracked and said something like "It's not like I'm some vegan harpy shrew who hates men..." I hate it when people do that.

Mark is working on his cluster, and I just finished watching House of Flying Daggers. I forgot how hot Takeshi Kaneshiro is. The plot is stupid (I hate love triangles), but the scenery and fights are so very, very pretty. And it's funny - the Wikipedia article mentions that Chinese critics hated it because it didn't have any sort of "message" to it, and that's the one thing I really liked about the movie. Because in every other Chinese movie that has a message - it's always about how the individual has to sacrifice their own needs and wants for the good of the nation (see Hero) and I'm always thinking, fuck the nation. Go run away with your lover/take revenge for your father/live a carefree life, etc.

One thing I didn't know was that Anita Mui was supposed to be cast in it, and it was supposed to be her last film appearance. She passed away before they started filming, and they wrote her role out of the movie. It's too bad. I suspect that she would have been slated to play the new leader of the House of Flying Daggers.

(Someone really needs to edit the Anita Mui Wikipedia page, too. The trivia at the bottom make no sense.)

Last night we watched Find Me Guilty. While Mark and I hardly ever agree on movies to watch, we can always agree on Vin Diesel. And he acts! I don't feel guilty about liking this movie. It's directed by Sidney Lumet, who did 12 Angry Men, which Mark and I both watched in our government classes in high school. Maybe it was a requirement? I highly doubt that juries are actually that fascinating to watch, but 12 Angry Men did keep my attention. Anyway, like I said, Vin Diesel acts!

Kevin Gnapoor: Look, I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but I only date women of color.
Cady: I have to pee.

Kevin Gnapoor: [after cutting into dance] What's up?
Janis: Can I help you?
Kevin Gnapoor: You Puerto Rican?
Janis: Lebanese.
Kevin Gnapoor: I feel that.

More quotes here.

I am deliberately not reading the news, especially not about the Middle East.

Mark is at OLS right now, which is in Ottawa. He tells me the weather there is like it was in New Orleans, all hot and humid, with thunderstorms in the middle of the day. It's really hot here in the Bay Area, too, although thankfully I work right next to the ocean, so it hardly ever gets too hot.

Oh, and I finally got Mark to see and like a Shakespeare movie. We can usually agree on a movie to see in the theater, but that's mostly because I'm willing to see every comic book movie, ever. When picking out rentals, he wants to pick out every Quentin Tarantino movie, or anything with gangsters, Nicholas Cage and other macho stuff. When I want to rent stuff, I want comedies and Hong Kong cinema. He's always objected to Shakespeare because he "can't understand the language".

We rented The Merchant of Venice. Mark agreed to this only because my other pick was Bride and Prejudice (dude, Kumar and Said from Lost!), and Al Pacino plays Shylock, a Jewish moneylender. The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare's most controversial plays, mostly for its anti-Semitism. It's a difficult play to stage, and an even harder film to shoot, because you have to cut down Shakespeare's five-act play to two hours, and make doubly sure that you don't allow the characters to become caricatures.

I really liked the movie. In Roger Ebert's review, he notes that the genius of Shakespeare's writing is that despite the racism, "its venom is undercut by Shakespeare's inability to objectify any of his important characters. He always sees the man inside." Al Pacino is captivating in it, and does a lot with the monologues he's given - "Hath not a Jew eyes?"

At the end of it, Mark turned to me and said, "Wow, and you say *I* like to watch train wrecks. That was half an hour of people just being really cruel." He's right - all the so-called "good" characters - Portia, Bassanio, Lorenzo, all treat Shylock contemptuously, even as they plead with Shylock to "show mercy".

There was one Arab character in here who is not a terrorist, and doesn't die. It's the Prince of Morocco, played by David Harewood - one of Portia's suitors. I guess that makes two.

I wish they had done more with the character of Jessica - Shylock's daughter - she elopes with Lorenzo, stealing her father's fortune and leaving him ruined, AND she converts to Christianity. She's only in the film for a few minutes, and she's shown as a flighty, shallow girl, until she starts feeling guilty towards the end, but she doesn't explain herself, nor are we shown anything of her motivations.

After watching this movie, he told me that a Klingon character in Star Trek liked to quote Shakespeare, and "If you prick us, do we not bleed?" was one of those lines.

In other news:

Japan creates a digital odor recorder: The new device, developed by scientists at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, analyzes smells through 15 sensors, records the odour's recipe in digital format and then reproduces the scent by mixing 96 chemicals and vapourizing the result. This is so awesome.

Reading Versus Watching: Wuxia - This Wet Asphalt article explores why American publishers haven't really tried to translate Chinese wuxia novels - the most popular fantasy novels read all over Asia, especially those written by Jin Rong, the most widely-read twentieth century author alive today. The writer posits that issues of genre-classifying and unfamiliar non-Western styles are to blame, but also points out that Americans picked up on anime and manga fairly quickly and it's one of the largest money-makers for the book industry today.

I think the biggest hurdle, though, is just translating the novels. I've just about given up finding a Chinese novel translated in English that I can read and enjoy. The translations always come off to me as rather stilted, or too literal and I don't know if it's just me, but in the books I've read, I've always ended up hating the protagonist, for either being stupid or selfish. I know Jin Rong's books are not like that - and I know that only because I've watched many of the television serials his books are based on.

Some people have declared it Blog Against Racism Week.

Movie superstar SAMUEL L JACKSON will voice God in a new audio version of the Bible. I am SO getting this.

Especially now that Guys Gone Wild exists. Favorite title is "Dude, Where's My Pants?"

Other things bouncing in my head:

You know that annoying guy in Office Space who says "Mmmmkay?" all the time? I met the real-life version of him in a very long meeting this week. He is just as annoying in real life.

Random people's opinions on immigration are really pissing me off. None of them seem to get that any changes in the law will also affect legal immigrants, almost certainly not in a good way.

Superman Returns will be on IMAX.

Mark's parents and grandparents are coming tomorrow. Mark previously thought they were coming last week, so I assisted him in the middle of a cleaning frenzy even though I was pretty sick. The good thing about cleaning last week is that there's not much left to do tonight. (And he is doing most of it.)

For whatever reason, lately, I've been resenting helping out with the cleaning. I think I'm just annoyed because even though I spend a lot of time here, I don't live here, and I (rightly or wrongly) don't feel like it should be my responsibility. Maybe I'm just being bratty.

The more I learn about the healthcare industry the more it depresses me.

I finished Danny, Champion of the World, by Roald Dahl. There are a couple of stories taken straight from his autobiography, Boy, and one chapter about the Big Friendly Giant, which would later turn into its own book. It's fascinating watching how the stories inspire more stories.

I hate PG&E. Stupid privatized utilities. (What, you thought California was liberal?) They have not managed to keep the power on continuously for a straight month. Last week, there was a power outage at my office. This week, Mark's power went out.

I'm posting this part unlocked because manrobotmonster was referring to it in one of his entries. One thing I forgot to mention is that Mark and I were pretty much joking in this conversation - we don't obsess about it much other than to note it. I will admit that I occasionally obsess more about this stuff than he does. Also forgot to mention: The black guy dies, too. It's actually two cliches in one - the black guy dying, and the guy who discovers the deadly secret and dies before he can tell the protagonist what the one clue is that will solve the whole movie are the same person.

We watched what Zack called "some dumb action movie" - it turned out to be Spartan, this David Mamet movie that everyone gave four stars to. Maybe it was our initial impression that Zack gave us that framed how we perceived the movie, but we thought the entire thing was kind of dumb, and cliched, and the whole Mamet thing with people repeating their lines several times drove us nuts. And there was a Lebanese terrorist. I said, "Sorry honey", and Mark said, "It's okay - where are all the positive Arab characters?" "There's Monk." "But he's the only one!" "Yeah."

I thought of another one later - Sayid on Lost, but I don't know if he counts since his character was in the Iraq army. ?