Fiction is a Crime

Posted on March 6 2005 by Mickey
    The Thought Police just nabbed another one, namely William Poole, 18, whose heinous crime is apparently possession of an imagination. “A George Rogers Clark High School junior arrested Tuesday for making terrorist threats told LEX 18 News Thursday that the ‘writings’ that got him arrested are being taken out of context.
    “[…] Poole told LEX 18 that the whole incident is a big misunderstanding. He claims that what his grandparents found in his journal and turned into police was a short story he wrote for English class.
    “‘My story is based on fiction,’ said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. ‘It’s a fake story. I made it up. I’ve been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over[run] by zombies.̵
    “On Thursday, a judge raised Poole’s bond from one to five thousand dollars after prosecutors requested it, citing the seriousness of the charge.”
    Sounds like the high school isn’t the only thing overrun.
Posted in News, WTF | 1 Comment

Product of the Year

Posted on March 5 2005 by Mickey
    My Linksys router got Product of the Year. I’m so proud.
Posted in Gadgets | Leave a comment

I Hate Blogs

Posted on March 1 2005 by Mickey
    After months of inactivity, I feel a resurgence that reawakens my interest in updating the site…and then my frigging new hosts give me some crap about my MySQL activity and disable my database!
    Computers suck.
    Hopefully we can come to an agreement and I can restore my last few entries and post them here.   [4:09 AM]
    Update: I didn’t feel like waiting to rectify the problem with my host. I just grabbed a bunch of recent entries from the Google cache and pasted them in manually. I’m missing a few from December (14, actually), as well as a comment or two (well, 9), but it’ll do for now…
Posted in Blog | 1 Comment

Oscars 2005

Posted on February 28 2005 by Mickey
   5:56 PM: I wasn’t sure if I was going to live-blog tonight since I’d exhausted my movie-talk yesterday.  But I’ve got nothing else to do.  It’s this or just talk back to my TV screen.
    I’ve been prepping for the Oscars by listening to a lot of movie soundtracks.  Last night was Star Wars and Close Encounters.  I’ve played these a lot, of course, but I really gave them a thorough listen last night, and I was reminded how truly great they are. The finale to Close Encouters is breathtakingly gorgeous and the battle music in Star Wars heartpoundingly exciting. I listened to Prisoner of Azkaban earlier, I just finished E.T., and now I’m listening to A.I..
    6:33 PM: seriously, TV Guide Channel is bleeping the word “boobs”?! How tight-assed a country have we become?
    7:28 PM: soundtracks update: now listening to Napoleon Dyanmite (because Pedro is with Melissa Rivers).
    8:28 PM: oops, I forgot ABC might want to do a pre-show too. At least Billy Bush didn’t make a complete ass of himself. (Sentence bleeped by TV Guide Channel.)
    8:46 PM: Catwoman 2?
    First prediction is wrong. I was about to change my mind and root for Finding Neverland, but I would’ve been wrong either way.
    8:48 PM: I got one right. I didn’t go out on much of a limb though. Even fellow nominee Alan Alda said, on Joan & Melissa’s preshow, that Morgan Freeman was going to win.
    8:52 PM: Pepsi bastardizes a classic movie moment. I am not amused. I would boycott, but Vanilla Pepsi is so tasty.
    8:54 PM: soundtracks update: now listening to Jerry Goldsmith’s Legend.
    8:56 PM: Robin Williams has monologue envy.
    9:02 PM: another Pixar victory. As it should be. And now, for no known reason, the first best song performance. Time for a Double break.
    9:13 PM: aaahhh!!! Actors have taken over the theater! They’re everywhere! Cate Blanchett has invaded the main floor. Scarlett Johanson has taken up a position in the balcony. Nowhere is safe!
    9:22 PM: got another prediction right with Cate Blanchett’s win, but I was almost ready to pick Virginia Madsen just now.
    9:30 PM: please don’t insult documentaries by likening them to reality TV shit.
    10:10 PM: no, I didn’t stop watching. I’ve been taking my popcorn break and didn’t want to get fake butter all over my PowerBook keyboard. I had some incredibly witty stuff to say, but it’s all lost now. You’re just stuck with this. Did I miss anything? I thought that was Colin Mochrie in those Snack Fairy commercials. Jake Gyllenhaal, presenting the special effects award, has a weird-shaped Silly Putty head and an extremely wide Muppet mouth. In fact…

Separated at Birth

    10:13 PM: a woman says “dog’s bollocks”. Good thing the TV Guide channel stopped its Oscar coverage.
    10:23 PM: The Aviator gets Cinematography too. I’m too lazy to check the nominees list: is this a Return of the King sweep yet? Will we be reading articles about the Academy can only focus on one blockbuster now and can’t evenly distribute its awards any more?
    10:27 PM: nope. Beat out by Ray for sound recording.  So much for the maxim that a movie needs helicopters, machine guns, and explosions to sound good. (Note: maxim still stands for home theater demonstrations.)
    10:39: original score. And a surprise write-in win for Sky Captain! Actually, Finding Neverland wins, for handily capturing many styles. But—soundtracks update—I’m now listening to Edward Shearmur’s Sky Captain. So there.
    11:00 PM: oh yes, please, refresh my memory on the Best Song nominees. Let’s spend even more time on this useless category.
    11:03 PM: Hilary Swank knocks out Annette Bening, goes tomorrow’s inevitable headline. She might even get best back, but that award actually goes to Melanie Griffith. I was half-hoping Imelda Staunton would win for Vera Full of Drake—not that I’ve seen it, but just because it would upset the predictions and piss off the red states.
    11:10 PM: maybe The Sea Inside’s win will piss off the red states instead (the ones upset by Million Dollar Baby, that is). ‘Cept they don’t watch those movies you gotta read.
    11:29 PM: no surprises with Best Actor. Jamie Foxx wins…and makes a teary acceptance speech that would make me feel bad to make fun of.
    11:31 PM: soundtracks update: I am now listening to Eric von Korngold’s Adventures of Robin Hood. Maybe some Max Steiner’s King Kong and Michael Kamen’s Baron Munchausen on deck.
    11:36 PM: Martin Scorsese has once again struck out. At least Clint Eastwood is not undeserving.
    11:40 PM: wow. The E! guys were right. They said The Aviator was the initial frontrunner but of late there has been a groundswell for Million Dollar Baby. Did Martin Scorsese do such a bad job that he can assemble award-winning ingredients but can’t pull off an award-winning movie from them? So I’m told, but I didn’t get that feeling when I was actually watching his film. If anything, Million Dollar Baby was the one that seemed flawed to me, since its big plot twist makes it feel so much like two movies. Obviously the Academy doesn’t have a problem with it. But then again, it’s my blog.
    P.S.: producer Albert Ruddy looks like a cross between Frank Langella and Brad Garrett. Not that that matters. I’m just still feeling snippy. I have to say something nice about the production though. I liked the way the technical nominees were grouped together, either in the seats or on stage. It’s like the producers are staging this like a show more than just covering it like a live event. It’ll probably get an Emmy next year. The monitors embedded in the stage and swooping across the ceiling were cool too. And I’m glad to see the big Chris Rock controversy turned out to be a big nothing, as I expected.
    Anyway, off to E!’s post-show, more soundtracks off my iPod, some Double, and, maybe, if I’m still awake, a movie. Possibly…SKY CAPTAIN!!!
Posted in Movies, TV | Leave a comment

Letters from Limbo

Posted on February 26 2005 by Mickey
    I hate to say it, but it’s almost as if the comment spammers have won.  No, they haven’t attacked the site again, but the precautions I’ve taken to prevent them are prohibitive enough that I have been having second thoughts about posting here—on my own site!
    Bastards!
    Plus there’s the inescapable feeling, from which I’ve been suffering the last couple months, that I have nothing new to say.  I had little interest in reiterating four more years of bitching about the incompetence of our vampire president.  (Come on, I can’t be the only one to see a similarity.  What about the Rumsfeld/Renfield connection?)  There seemed little point in bothering.  It’s pretty obvious Bush’s followers are concerned by only two touchstones—stopping abortions and hating queers—and they would let him get away with anything else; so why bother trying to reason with them.  I came close to blogging again at the height (at 8″+, cut) of the Jeff Gannon scandal, but never got around to it.  (I know a lot of the liberal blogs were outraged by the hypocrisy of the right defending a gay prostitute in the White House press room, but probably the only kind of homosexual the right wing could accept is one making a career of it.  Not to mention that everyone covering the White House is a lying [media] whore to begin with.)
    But the real reason for my prolonged silence is Double.

Double

Double is a freeware mah jongg game for Mac.  What I like best is that it is stripped down and basic.  No busy backgrounds of Japanese landscapes, no annoying MIDIs of Asian music, no complex designs on the tiles.  It comes with one tile set, but others can be made by importing icon files.  (The one above is an amalgam of the icons available from Homestar Runner.com plus some from Adult Swim.)  The tile sets can be arranged in sixteen layouts, and recently I got the stupid idea to try winning a game on each layout.  For the last two weeks I’ve been stuck at the “Formula 1” layout, shown above.  It has been pretty much occupied my every evening when I’m at home.  I’ve been staying up three or four hours past my bedtime.  And when I close my eyes at night, I can still see Homestar characters.
    But glory and trumpets, I beat the game last night at 11:51 PM.  This morning, surprisingly, I won on two more layouts and this evening I’ve won on three more.  Just two more layouts before I complete all sixteen, and can then have more time to blog again.  Provided, of course, I can remember all these damned passwords.
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Oscars Pre-Show

Posted on February 26 2005 by Mickey
    My favorite weekend is upon us.  Sure, the Super Bowl might have bigger parties and better food, but at least Oscar weekend leads up to a TV show I actually watch for its content and not for the commercials (and I can barely muster even that much these last couple years).
    For the second year in a row (maybe the third—I can’t remember) I have managed to see all five Best Picture nominees, and then some.  I feel quite the informed Oscars viewer—at least in that final category—which leads me this year to hazard the making some actual predictions…plus a lot of guesses in all the other categories.  I copied this list of nominees from the Oscars.com page.  I’ll skip the documentary and foreign film categories since in those instances I definitely won’t know what I’m talking about.  Sorry about the length, but I love talking about film.
    Lights, camera, blockquote, as they say in the biz…

MAKEUP
    LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
    THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
    THE SEA INSIDE
I have to confess the only movie I saw in this category was The Passion of the Christ, thus it gets my pick if only for the poor guy who had to paint the intricate webwork of bloody lashes on Jesus’s back every day.

COSTUME DESIGN
    THE AVIATOR
    FINDING NEVERLAND
    LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
    RAY
    TROY
This category always bothers me.  Too often they just give it to the person who had to make the most costumes.  And too often they award movies whose design is based on the historical record of photographs and catalog ads.  That hardly sounds like “design” to me.  That’s why I was so pleased when Ngila Dickson won the award last year for her inventive costumes for The Lord of the Rings, where she and Richard Taylor had to invent the look of everything themselves and, pun intend, create it out of whole cloth.  That said, I suppose I should be picking A Series of Unfortunate Events, but I bet it goes to Aviator.

VISUAL EFFECTS
    HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN
    I, ROBOT
    SPIDER-MAN 2
I can’t decide whether the Academy will go for Azkaban or the flashier though cartoonish effects of Spider-Man 2.  I didn’t see I, Robot because the effects looked so crappy, but I’m told they came off well after all.  However, the effects in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow are so superior that I am very upset it was ignored in this category.

ART DIRECTION
    THE AVIATOR
    FINDING NEVERLAND
   LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
   THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
    A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT
A Series of Unfortunate Events had the most inventive look, but maybe it’s too reminiscent of old Tim Burton movies.  I have a hunch they’ll give it to Phantom of the Opera.

FILM EDITING
   THE AVIATOR
    COLLATERAL
    FINDING NEVERLAND
    MILLION DOLLAR BABY
    RAY
I found it interesting that my dad made a point to comment on the editing in Finding Neverland.  That said, I still feel Thelma Schoonmaker will win for Aviator, if only because she’s so well respected.

CINEMATOGRAPHY
    THE AVIATOR
    HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
    THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
   THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
    A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT
Maybe the Academy will be impressed with how the makers of The Aviator used the art of cinematography to set the time and tell their story (hence the blue golf course), but I have a feeling The Passion will get it.

MUSIC (SONG)
    “Accidentally In Love” – SHREK 2
    “Al otro lado del río” – THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES
    “Believe” – THE POLAR EXPRESS
    “Learn To Be Lonely” – THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
    “Look To Your Path (Vois Sur Ton Chemin)” – THE CHORUS
I seriously do not give a shit.
    Give the award out before the telecast and announce it during a commercial bump like a Grammy award.  The East Coast will thank you.

MUSIC (SCORE)
    FINDING NEVERLAND
    HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN
    LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
    THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
    THE VILLAGE
I find it difficult to care since Edward Shearmur’s score for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was inexplicably slighted.  I have a feeling the award will go to John Debney for The Passion…which is a shame since I’ve always considered it a rip-off of Peter Gabriel’s score for The Last Temptation of [the] Christ.

WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
    BEFORE SUNSET
    FINDING NEVERLAND
    MILLION DOLLAR BABY
    THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES
    SIDEWAYS
My money’s on Sideways.  The movie is so rich with dialogue that it would be a shame if it does not win.

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
    THE AVIATOR
    ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
    HOTEL RWANDA
    THE INCREDIBLES
    VERA DRAKE
One of those categories where I wouldn’t mind which wins; but I have a hunch Charlie Kaufman’s inventive Spotless Mind will win

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
    THE INCREDIBLES
    SHARK TALE
    SHREK 2
I am a card-carrying Pixar disciple.  That Dreamworks crap is for poseurs.

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
    Cate Blanchett – THE AVIATOR
    Laura Linney – KINSEY
    Virginia Madsen – SIDEWAYS
    Sophie Okonedo – HOTEL RWANDA
    Natalie Portman – CLOSER
I’d vote for a belated honorary Oscar for Virginia Madsen’s shower scene in Creator, but the big award goes to Cate Blanchett’s vibrant turn as Katharine Hepburn.

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
    Annette Bening – BEING JULIA
    Catalina Sandino Moreno – MARIA FULL OF GRACE
    Imelda Staunton – VERA DRAKE
    Hilary Swank – MILLION DOLLAR BABY
    Kate Winslet – ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
I know there are some who think Hilary Swank is too young to be getting two Best Actress Oscars but I thought she was excellent in Million Dollar Baby.  She played every scene perfectly and she can throw a mean punch.

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
    Alan Alda – THE AVIATOR
    Thomas Haden Church – SIDEWAYS
    Jamie Foxx – COLLATERAL
    Morgan Freeman – MILLION DOLLAR BABY
    Clive Owen – CLOSER
I’m really not sure about this one.  My money’s on Morgan Freeman though, just for being Morgan Freeman.

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
    Don Cheadle – HOTEL RWANDA
    Johnny Depp – FINDING NEVERLAND
    Leonardo DiCaprio – THE AVIATOR
    Clint Eastwood – MILLION DOLLAR BABY
    Jamie Foxx – RAY
Jamie Foxx does an amazing job of playing Ray Charles, but halfway through the movie I got the feeling I was watching a really long SNL skit.  Is it really worth getting an award for doing a prolonged impersonation?  I’d like to see Don Cheadle win this one.  His performance in Hotel Rwanda is more subdued, granted, but an Oscar win would bring more attention to this important movie—and Don Cheadle is always good and worth the recognition.  Still, Jamie Foxx will win.

DIRECTING
    Martin Scorsese – THE AVIATOR
    Clint Eastwood – MILLION DOLLAR BABY
    Taylor Hackford – RAY
    Alexander Payne – SIDEWAYS
    Mike Leigh – VERA DRAKE
At long last Martin Scorsese should get the Oscar he deserves.  However, Clint Eastwood shows up and spoils everything.  The Academy will want to honor both men, so I’m predicting Clint will get the directing award while…

BEST PICTURE
    THE AVIATOR
    FINDING NEVERLAND
    MILLION DOLLAR BABY
    RAY
    SIDEWAYS
…Mr Scorsese will have to settle for watching his producers accept the grand prize.
    Having seen all five nominees I have to reassess my complaint about this being a lackluster year.  True, there was no huge movie to rally behind and breathlessly await its DVD release, but all five pictures were well-done and interesting and watchable.  Unlike some years, they are all worthy.  My dad and my friend Schmoe both love Finding Neverland.  My boss was very impressed with Million Dollar Baby.  Sideways has great dialogue but it seems too slight (and, having said that, too long) to muscle its way past the others to the podium.  Ray is most noted for Jamie Foxx’s performance, and the movie is not helped by too much of a resemblance to the almost clichéd Behind the Music arc.  I think The Aviator will get it.  It was the first of the nominees I saw and I’m sticking with it.  It’s the kind of prestigious bio-pic that the Academy loves to reward, it’s directed by the lauded Martin Scorsese, and the movie even celebrates old Hollywood.  Seems like a natural.  And it doesn’t hurt that it’s a very good movie.
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The Endangerd Sanders Speed Bump Cake

Posted on February 11 2005 by Mickey
    From the Detroit News: “Now that Awrey Bakeries has filed for bankruptcy protection, the fate of a Detroit icon hangs in the balance.
    “I speak of the chocolate bumpy cake, which represents not so much a beguiling confection—chocolate cake ribboned with buttercream and iced in chocolate—as a luscious slice of the city’s collective memory.”
    Read more…
Posted in Food, News | Leave a comment

They’re a Couple of Black Bars — Get Over It!

Posted on February 2 2005 by Mickey
    I’m still not sure what to make of this letterboxing lawsuit against MGM.  I don’t have fullscreen and widescreen copies with which to compare, but my rudimentary knowledge of film projection suggests that the plaintiffs are a bunch of whining idiots who don’t seem to grasp that most 1.85:1 movies are shot with an open-matte.  And if they’d study the widescreen versions more carefully they’d see that the picture information being masked on the top and bottom is just dead space to begin with; along with the fact that there’s also usually more picture information on the sides. A detail that seems to have escaped them.  The fact that MGM is reportedly settling the lawsuit, likely because it is cheaper in the long run, will only reinforce the plantiffs’ ignorance.  These two sites, DVD File and The Digital Bits, have better write-ups on the lawsuit, complete with screen grabs to compare.
    Speaking of ignorance, I’ve been reading a lot about how people should get the new Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 2-disc special edition just because it’s so rare to have a Charlie Kaufman commentary track.  This may be true, but it’s too bad these DVD reviewers are too lazy to do any research and see that the commentary track was already available on the single-disc release of the movie.
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Now Hiring. No Fatties.

Posted on January 30 2005 by Mickey
    It’s almost like being picked on in the schoolyard again.  Howard Weyers, owner of Weyco Inc in Okemos, raised some controversy when he forced employees to either quit smoking or quit their job.  Now, due to rising insurance costs, he says he’ll crack down on overweight employees.
    “We have to work on eating habits and getting people to exercise,” he says, according to this Reuters article.
    I’m not sure what’s scarier: the fact this sounds like he’s trying to purge his workplace of personal vices or that it actually seems like a thoughtfully considered plan.  The article goes on to say Weyers “has brought in an eating disorder therapist to speak to workers, provided eating coaches, created a point system for employees to earn health-related $100 bonuses and plans to offer $45 vouchers for health club memberships.” This new plan might actually turn out being a wonderful thing for these employees.
    Then again, Weyers might end up dealing with a lot of stress-related insurance claims as his employees try to deal with the pressure of a workplace that is trying to change the way they live.  And who’s to say Weyers won’t eventually start picking on people with bad eyesight or thinning hair or who can’t curl their tongue or have weird earlobes.
Posted in Food, Links, News | 1 Comment

The Secret of Book Six

Posted on January 26 2005 by Mickey
    JK Rowling has already hinted that a major character dies in the next book of her Harry Potter series.  I recently received information as to whom it might be.  Click the following link to find out.
More >>
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