Monday, August 11, 2008

Things Not To Say To An 11 Year Old (Who Is Riding In The Car With You)

1. Oh, turn this up...do you like Lil' Wayne?
2. OK, we just need to make a quick stop at the liquor store and then we're done with our errands.
3. (per item 2) I'm $4 short. Did mom give you your allowance yet?

I'd like to thank my little sister for hanging out with me today.

Friday, August 8, 2008

Dear HuffPost: Thanks for Nothing

Apparently, the Huffington Post's editors are leaving no ocean bed untrawled in their search for contributors. Capturing the coveted and fickle "Creepy Cult" demographic, they've solicited Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks, founders of The Hendricks Institute, to list their top 10 relationship movies. A quick tour of the "Institute" web-site leads me to believe that this is the equivalent of asking the Raelian Movement for their top 10, all-time favorite episodes of Frasier.

I promise that my main beef has to do with their choices of films, but first, a random sample from the guiding principles of the "Institute," so as to better understand why someone thought it was a sensible act to allow these people to proffer opinions about movies:

We take a spiritual approach, grounded in what we call organic spirituality. Our training is designed to produce spiritual shifts which are felt in the body, and which do not depend on changing your beliefs or intellectual understanding. In other words, four people--an agnostic, a Buddhist, a Christian and a Jew--might feel a heart-centered awakening of love and compassion, even though each of them came to the training and left with differing cosmological beliefs. We are not so much interested in beliefs as we are in the underlying consciousness out of which all mental Phenomena emerge.

What I love about random capitalization in my native tongue ("Phenomena," in the above paragraph, for example), is that it is an instant and irrefutable warning that the writer is batshit crazy. Seriously, why "Phenomena" and not "organic spirituality?" The latter term seems like the real copyright jackpot. Organic spirituality...that's a set of faith-based beliefs nurtured with fish emulsion and compost gathered from the dumpsters at Trader Joe's, right?

But I digress. Theoretically, this miscarriage of cultural punditry (theirs...but I suppose by extension mine as well) comes to us in the guise of a ranking of relationship movies. To be fair, this feature is a two-parter so maybe they'll have some honorable choices next Friday, but to get the ball rolling, let's see what the TM set has in their DVD library:

1. Moonstruck
OK, no argument there. A superlative rumination on relationships.

2. The Holiday
Oh yeah, I love Roman Holiday...Wait, you're not talking about that exquisite, Dalton Trumbo-created, Audrey Hepburn-starring piece of excellence? Oh...you're talking about a movie that features the acting talents of Cameron Diaz and Jack Black? Ah. Well, what recommends this movie, then? Whence flows it's organic spirituality?

Pay particularly close attention to Kate Winslet's tirade toward the end when she's finally closing the door on her boyfriend, the quintessential handsome cad she's been putting up with for 'way too long. If you've ever been lied to by someone who's says they love you, you'll laugh and wince and learn a lot at she gives him his come-uppance.

I see. So, what differentiates this romantic comedy from the pack is that one of the heroines tells off her boyfriend.

3. The January Man

Now, I know what those of us familiar with the forgettable eras of Kevin Kline's career are thinking: This movie is about cops and a serial killer! What the fuck are these people on about?!!! Rest assured, the Hendrickses are only pointing to a very specific, very expository scene at the beginning of the film:

This overlooked gem is a thriller that we recommend primarily because of one brilliant scene. It takes place toward the beginning, so if you don't like the thriller aspects of the movie you can skip the rest. Watch closely the scene between Kevin Kline and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in the restaurant at the ice-skating rink.

So, this, a film listed under the heading of "The Top 10 Relationship Movies of All Time," makes the cut because of a single scene that happens in the beginning of a movie about cops hunting a killer. To be fair, they're right: you can skip the rest.

4. Truly, Madly, Deeply
I know that it is considered unpleasant to speak ill of the dead, so I'm going to lay off Anthony Minghella on this one. Also, I have not seen--nor will I likely see--this film. What I can say about it is that Alan Rickman sports a mustache (that's good) and that, in addition to winning a BAFTA, IMDB informs me that the film also cleaned up at something called the Mystfest. Oh, wait, here's what makes the film great, according to our Huff Post critics: One high moment of the movie comes when the characters quote a poem from Pablo Neruda. Just thinking of that moment brings tears to our eyes.

BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!
(pause for breath)
BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

Just thinking of people salivating over the work of Pablo Neruda brings tears to my eyes, too. Do the characters then go on to quote lyrics from their favorite Don Henley songs? Oh mercy.

5. Monsoon Wedding
Of course, this is not a bad movie. In fact, like Moonstruck, it might actually deserve a spot on a real top 10 list. However, I suspect that its placement here is compromised for a variety of reasons, most notably this: using Monsoon Wedding as "a loving look at the complexities of an Indian culture in which arranged marriages often match partners whose hearts belong to others" is like citing The Birdcage as a frank and probing look at same-gendered parenting. At heart, this is a melodrama and, while it can be argued that melodramas have real analytical purpose when examining sociological trends, it can't be argued very well.

So, like I said, this is the first of two posts, with the second half of the list being revealed next Friday. Until then, I will be watching When Harry Met Sally on repeat, seething all the while.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Inauguration

Unfortunately, I find myself completely unprepared to write anything of substance for my first blog entry. As with most things in my life, I've thought about this for a long time, but once I'm in a position to act, all of the urbane or even topical things I've wanted to write about have completely left me. So, in lieu of a post about Kanye West producing the next Jay Z album, or Paris Hilton's response to John McCain's attack ads, I present to you a photograph of my favorite thing in the world:




Click here to be redirected to Boing Boing for the full story of this wondrous beast.