Yesterday: fly to L.A., spend the afternoon working in the hotel although Hollywood, just outside my door, beckons. Drinks with clients in Pasadena in the evening. Geek talk. Must return here when I can spend more time.

Today: up at six to beat the L.A. traffic (but fail to do so), drive to San Diego and for lovely meeting followed by a lovely lunch. More geek talk. Drive five hours to Las Vegas for meetings tomorrow and Thursday. It rains hard in the Mojave Desert. Drive for a bit on the Strip. Try to take a picture of some Elvis parking attendants, but they want six bucks.

Haven’t really seen the Strip at night yet, and I’m just about to do so. I promise you a better post when I return.

As if it wasn’t neat enough to be flying to L.A. next week then driving to Vegas, all for work, I just found out that the biggest Star Trek convention of the year will be going on at my hotel in Vegas.

Guests will include most of the original cast (Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura and Chekov), and Wil Wheaton.

Because you know, having only a Star Trek wedding chapel in the hotel just isn’t tacky enough.

Dave has recently written a very entertaining post about a bad date he once had. He was inspired by Nick’s own bad date stories. I too once wrote about my own bad dates here.

Anyway, Dave’s reminds me of all the things people are sometimes willing to do for a magnetic member of the opposite sex. This seems to be the main theme of the new reality show Cupid (it was late, after Ultimate, and I had just discovered (GASP!) that my home Internet didn’t work, so yes, I wound up in front of the boob tube, without the strength to resist this new gem of pop culture).

I have to say I was highly entertained. The premise: male contestants trying to seduce a hot millionnaire chick. The format: American Idol-like auditions are being run all over the country, to find appropriate contestants. The panel: the hot millionnaire chick and her two best friends.

Not an easy thing to do if you’re one of the male contestants. But still, you’d think people would have more of a clue of what the opposite sex likes. You know how on American Idol there are tons of would-be contestants that you can’t believe have never been told they can’t sing? Same here: I couldn’t believe the approaches these guys took, completely confident they would be fool-proof.

Many of them came in without a word, took off their shirts to reveal bulging pecs, and started doing push ups or stupid kung fu moves, only to be laughed out of the room. One came in backwards, sticking his butt upwards in the women’s faces and slapping it. Not in any funny self-deprecating way, either! One of them became very agitated and slightly aggressive when one of the women wanted to see his wooden aikido sword up close: “Nobody touches the sword. It might save my life in a fight one day”.

For all our Renaissance Man and Woman talk, Homme Rose and Femme Libérée, it seems to me the two genders are still quite different. But are they so out of touch with each other, that they can’t even put themselves in the shoes of the other? I mean, had these guys ever spoken to a woman?

Here’s yet another movie vs. movie review by guest blogger Dr. Wank. For the record, I loved Secretary but Punch-Drunk Love was one of those movies I could tell were good, but couldn’t bring myself to actually like.

So here, again, is our correspondent Dr. Wank:

In this installment of “Movie vs. Movie” we review a couple of romantic comedies I’ve rented in the last few days. I can hear the throng now: “Two romantic comedies in one week? Something’s horribly wrong with Dr. Wank! Oh yeah, he’s got a bad case of marriage… :-/ ”

“Hohn-hohn, it is to laugh” as the French say! No, all hope is not lost my friends, for these are disturbing and thought-provoking romcoms, so it’s okay. Indeed, these bear very little resemblance to the Meg Ryan/Sandra Bullock dreck you’re thinking of.

Warning, there be spoilers ahead. (LSC’s note: no, keep reading, it’s worth it. I’ll warn you when they’re coming)

First we have Secretary. It starts with a woman in a neck-and-wrists spreader bar (a piece of BDSM gear, look it up) doing secretarial work. Right away I’m thinking “this is gonna be good!” Then it flashes back to the same young woman getting out of a mental institution after an extended stay. Yay! (FYI, Dr. Wank has a weird thing for clinically insane women, though he ended up marrying a shrink, go figure…).

Then the woman turns out to have a “cutting” problem, a fairly common psychological symptom whereby one makes (usually shallow) cuts in one’s skin. Occasionally burning or other forms of physical self-injury occur as well. Well! This woman all of a sudden is reminding me of all my first loves! What a movie!!

So then she goes on to get a secretarial job and her boss turns out to be a weird mix of nervous, domineering and persnickety. James Spader plays this part excellently. The cold domineering lizard-dude thing we’ve seen him do often, but mixing that in with deeply neurotic and emotionally-isolated makes for a very interesting character (no, really!). Far from being put off by this, the Secretary (she deserves capitalization) thrives under it.

(LSC again: ok, now in this paragraph there are spoilers)

At one point it comes to a head and the boss spanks her for typos. At first she’s stunned, but soon gets off on it in a big way. The whole scene seems impossible, but somehow these two actors are able to make it come off. I won’t ruin the rest of the movie, but suffice it to say that while the course of true love never did run straight, it’s rarely run crookeder than this. The final “sitting” scene is especially intense, but I guess it kinda had to be.

What struck me about this movie was how it made us accept things that would usually seem totally sick: A clinically insane girl is verbally abused by her boss. But she likes it. Then he starts hitting her when she makes typos. But she likes it! But then he mistreats her more severely, more emotionally. But that’s okay too, cuz she likes the physical abuse so much that she’s willing to fight through his emotional neglect! Yay! She’s the anti-Mikey, she likes everything!

(spoilers out)

Okay, I don’t think I’m describing this right. You have to see the movie to understand that this is nothing like a “normal” BDSM relationship (ya, ya, “whatever that is”). What I mean is, there’s no “Oh, you’re into that? So am I! Let’s discuss some limits, draw up some forms, and then go into my basement play room and mess around in a completely informed, safety-conscious, consensual way.” No, no, these people are deeply fucked up! The S&M is just the way they happen to express it.

And yet as you watch the movie, it’s like “hee hee, isn’t this weird and quirky?” not “this is sick” (which would be your reaction if any of this shit happened in real life). I am reminded of “I Dream of Genie” where a scantily-clad woman repeatedly pledges her submission to her “master” and begs him to give her stuff to do. And this was daytime American TV in the 70’s! How the hell did they get away with that?

The answer is Barbara Eden. Somehow the way she played the character made it seem fun rather than overtly sexual. I think the same thing happens in Secretary. Maggie Gyllenhaal (change your name dear, no one can remember that, I had to check imdb.com) just gives the role a certain quality that makes it come off as more normal and playful than it otherwise would, though by no means does it get to a “I Dream of Genie” level of comfort and joy.

Man, you know, I think I just fucked up this whole review, looking back over it, I’ve utterly failed to capture the essence of what makes this movie good. Hmm, just go see it, okay?

Okay, next up: Punch Drunk Love.

Adam Sandler plays his usual Happy Gilmore character, but this time in a serious role. Hard to explain this movie too. Basically, Happy is an emotionally repressed weirdo who occasionally freaks out and destroys whatever’s handy. This seems to be brought on by his seven sisters. The implication is that you can’t grow up a normal man with seven sisters. This is completely true.

Anyway, Happy seems to lead a pretty constrained existence, trying to run his toilet plunger company out of an industrial park building in Outer Assholia until he has a weird morning one day. A car crashes right in front of him (he strangely does nothing about it) and someone drops a small organ off in front of his business. He ignores it until She shows up. Emily Watson as the love interest drops her car off at the mechanics’ shop next to Happy’s business the same day, and comments on the organ (”You have a nice little organ!” She says. No not really…). After she leaves, Happy grabs the mini organ and runs back to his office with it, where it stays the rest of the movie.

There ensues yet another “true love is never easy” plot line, with Happy getting fucked over by an evil and vicious phone-sex operator and her 5 blonde brothers. The implication is that it’s impossible to grow up a normal woman with five brothers. This is completely true.

Aside from the analysis of sibling patterns and sanity (which are completely true) the movie provides us with this central message: Love is strength. This is shown both symbolically (Happy runs several times with an organ in his hands, which sounds impressive except that it’s a mini-organ) and literally (Once he’s fallen in love, Happy is able to beat the shit out of multiple opponents who cowed him earlier, including his seven evil sisters). And then there’s a vital sub-plot involving air miles and pudding, but I won’t cover everything…

What makes this movie good? Lots of things. 1) Interesting characters. The suppressed rage of the male lead is presented in an unusual way. He’s not a volcano waiting to explode (he actually explodes quite often, thank you) and he’s not a dark psycho. Instead, he’s a kind of sad and frustrated character worn down by his seven evil sisters (and a dentist, there’s an asshole dentist too, they’re always evil). 2) Interesting actors. All of the people in this film are just fun to look at, I’ll leave it at that. Luis Guzman as a supporting actor always raises a movie up a notch. 3) Music. The use of music and sound in this film is awesome. Example: A normal encounter between Happy, his love interest, and one of the evil sisters is turned into a horrible manic terror simply by the background music. Basically, Happy’s mental state is always given to us straight-up by the sound track of the movie, belying a visual appearance that is often very different. Extremely well done.

So now the verdict. Does PDL knock out the competition, or will it get spanked by Secretary? (Heh heh, I should write sports.) Actually, I’m honestly having a really hard time deciding between these two. Both are unusual dark romcoms that actually have a point and provide the viewer with interesting characters played by interesting actors. PDL has better sound, but Secretary has better visuals. I’m tempted to give Secretary the victory because it has S&M in it, but that smacks of the “Tits+Bullets=Rating” movie reviewing technique. Anyway, I identify more with the characters in PDL.

Hmm, yup I think we have our first draw in the “Movie vs. Movie” review series. See ‘em both, I say!

Oh, and Spellbound, see Spellbound! It’s a documentary about spelling, but it’s good!

Dr. Wank

I’m not even sure The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen warrants a review, because it’s not like I loved it or hated it. I just spent the whole movie fighting sleep. The guy next to me actually lost the fight.

As expected, LXG suffered from the comparison with the graphic novel (fancy way to say long comic book) from which it was inspired. I do think those who haven’t read it will enjoy the movie more, because it will be their first exposure to the neat premise, but I still doubt the film can hold their interest beyond that.

In the comic book, most of the characters, taken from classical literature, are past their prime, and are now battling demons of some kind or another. Mina Harker has just narrowly escaped death in some dubious circumstances, Dr Jekyll is struggling with his inner monster Hyde, Alan Quatermain is addicted to opium, and when they find the invisible man, he is busy serial-raping girls in a convent. It was mainly that moral ambiguity that made the characters so interesting. As expected, they scrubbed the characters completely clean for the movie and, well, they lost all their colors in the wash.

Storywise, although the story in the comic is rather straightforward, and not the most original idea ever written, the movie has completely replaced it with one even more asinine and forced.

Visually, some will say it isn’t fair to compare the look of a comic book with that of a movie, but I disagree. There have been plenty of movies that achieved the atmosphere of a comic (Batman looked wonderful, even if there wasn’t much else in it).

Now, it’s not that I expect a screen adaptation to be absolutely identical to the original material, but I do expect there to be a sound reason behind decisions to change things, even if it’s simply that “it works better on screen that way”. Sadly, none of the beautiful designs of the book found their way into the movie, although it’s obvious that considerable money went into it. The design of Captain Nemo’s ship Nautilus was absolute vanilla, and there is no reason why that should have been. I mean, it’s CG.

Other visual effects were sometimes good, often uneven. For example, the invisible man looked really different when he was CG than when they filmed a guy with makeup on. I won’t spoil any plot elements, but look at Hyde and his “friend” for the same unevenness.

There are some actors whose presence in the cast is often a sign that the movie will be good. Sean Connery isn’t one of them. Add LXG to Avengers and Highlander II among his questionable decisions. Mark Wahlberg is actually better at picking roles!

Add clumsily written dialog, a villain that belongs in Army of Darkness, remove any logic to the story, and there you have it: a really good premise, wasted.

A few weeks ago my good friend Dr. Wank, who has near impeccable taste in movies (but he liked AI), highly recommended Spellbound to me.

This is what he had to say:

Spellbound is a documentary about spelling bees. Sounds like the most boring piece of film imaginable, doesn’t it? I mean, if you were writing a comedy script about a guy who’s making a boring movie, you’d write it so he was doing a documentary about spelling, wouldn’t you?

But in actuality this is a great movie, one of the few in recent memory where I’ve felt compelled to clap loudly and enthusiastically at the end. It has more comedy and genuine drama than any of the recent blockbusters. Why, if the guys who made Daredevil had made this, they’d almost be breaking even karmatically!

And Metacritic agrees. Anyway, I’ve looked all over for it, and yes, I even dragged myself up the steps to the hoity-toity Boîte Noire for it. (Don’t get me started, you Plateau-types. La Boîte Noire puts Cliffhanger (yes, the Sly Stallone movie) in its Scandinavian cinema section. On purpose).

Well, my luck seems to have changed. Cinema du Parc will be showing it as of Saturday. I’m going to make the bold move of pre-emptively recommending you see it.

…only makes you poorer?

Just got off the phone with my friendly neighborhood travel clinic, and they regaled me with all sorts of juicy tales of what could happen to me if I don’t get the required shots before going to Morocco. Perhaps they use these tales to justify their exorbitant prices.

Typhoid: 35$
Heps A : 65$
Hep B: 30$
Two required consultations at the clinic: 60$
(Having a work insurance plan that covers this: priceless)

As I recall, the most expensive thing about my trip to Indonesia, after the plane ticket, was all the immunizations and medication. I remember the pharmacist charging me 8$ per pill for anti-malarials, warning me that they may induce psychotic episodes: “If you start feeling paranoid and aggressive, lay off the meds and check yourself into a clinic”. (Years later I did a paper on anti-malarials and learned that it was unadvisable to take the pills I’d taken for more than four weeks. I’d been on them for eleven weeks. Luckily I don’t have to take them for Morocco.)

When you get a vaccine for an exotic disease, they stamp your little yellow WHO-issued international health passport, and it feels like you’ve achieved something. Maybe that’s as good as any other way of choosing a destination: “Gee, I don’t have Yellow Fever in my little book yet!”

Lightspeeddad just sent me a link with the following message:

“You never know… could be helpful. Love, Dad XXX”

I follow the link, and the first thing on the page is, how they say “Eat my d*ck” in Morocco.

Always give your kids what they need to go through life.

New software translates the cat’s meow and the dog’s bark. Do I really want a disembodied, computer voice telling me what my cat is thinking?

“I’m feeling kinda tired. Would you mind licking my butt for me?”
“I’m secretly plotting your death for leaving me here over the weekend”

Actually, it probably ends up sounding more like:

Cat: “Meow”
Computer: “I’m hungry”
Cat: “Meow”
Computer: “I’m hungry”
Cat: “Meow”
Computer: “I’m hungry”
Cat: “Meow”
Computer: “I’m hungry”

Dog: “Bark”
Computer: “Who’s that?”
Dog: “Bark”
Computer: “Who’s that?”
Dog: “Bark”
Computer: “Who’s that?”
Dog: “Bark”
Computer: “Who’s that?”

I think I approached Pirates of the Caribbean with the right attitude, which was that I didn’t expect too much. The main draw for me was limited to some neat CG, and Orlando Bloom. And Bloom’s wasn’t even such a big draw, for as you know I’m more of a hobbit woman myself.

On the other hand, I don’t see how anyone could really expect this movie to be a “grand film”. It’s a Bruckheimer blockbuster, and it delivers just that, and even a little more. The CG is so good that it manages to remain interesting, despite the fact that you keep seeing the same effect over and over. Throw in an honest story without too many predictable turns, entertaining if relatively uninspired swordplay, and some eye candy for both genders. Although the movie touches on every pirate cliché under the sun, this somehow manages to work.

I thought that with the locations and themes, there definitely could have been more opportunities for beauty shots though the film does deliver some, of naval battles, British soldiers in their red uniforms, and of course, Bloom and his utterly forgettable lady. There is a high-angle shot of a ship attacking a town at night, that makes you wish they’d make Warcraft into a movie. Then of course, you slap yourself silly.

But the one truly inspired element in this movie is Johnny Depp’s performance. He’s incredibly charismatic as a thoroughly foolish pirate with temporary flashes of intelligence, and steals the screen whenever he’s on it. Sadly, I thought Geoffrey Rush was completely eclipsed by the other two main actors. Bloom manages to make himself very respectable, even without pointy ears.

All told, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. And I even bumped into a Scottish hobbit in the lobby.