Movie Review: Thank You For Smoking

Thank You For Smoking: Torgo approves

Rainster approved of this a while back, and I obediently follow all of her suggestions. Turns out, she's right about Thank You For Smoking. It's an enjoyable movie about a lobbyist for Big Tobacco.

I recommend the movie, but do have a couple of complaints. It's quick and self-consciously clever in the style of quite a few psuedo-indie movies of the last decade or so (like Election, the Wes Anderson movies, Fight Club, etc.). But it doesn't add anything new to that genre. It's not breaking any new stylistic ground. It's funny, but not unexpectedly funny. The plot is conventional and follows an uninspired course.

So it's competent but not daring. I guess that's fine. And I certainly am glad I watched it, but it's not essential.

Moreover, my biggest disappointment was how unconvincing the lobbyist was. He's supposedly the master of spin, but I wasn't ever all that amazed by his spin. It felt a bit staid. This is the type of movie where I expected to feel as though the writing was smarter than I am capable of, and I didn't.

But if you haven't seen it, ignore what I just said and see it anyway.

Number 2

In case you don't read M-N's blog, we're currently expecting baby number 2.

We went for the first ultrasound this morning and learned that baby number 2 is boy number 2.

There are lots of possible responses to this news. First, there was some general disappointment over how outnumbered, gender-wise, M-N is going to be in the home. Also, she was looking forward to tea parties and cute dresses. But, while little girls' clothes are far cuter than little boys' clothes, we already have a ton of little boys' clothes, so at least we don't need a new wardrobe. There are even clothes that boy 1 outgrew before getting a chance to wear them. Plus, we think boy 1 will like having another boy to play with, even though he gets along very well with girls (especially his main girlfriend).

As an added bonus, we more or less know what to do with a boy, whereas I, for one, don't have any clue what to do with a girl. Granted, everyone everywhere always says that each child is dramatically different from the last, but I'm at least familiar with the basic anatomy and how it functions.

Now we just need a name, other than Number 2.

Lost Seinfeld Episode

National Lampoon has a clever take on the Michael Richards story.

Where was I?

I was in Colorado, spending a week on my uncle's ranch. The boy got to meet not just an aunt, uncle, cousin, and grandmother of mind (add 'great' to those terms for him, I guess, though I'm not sure 'great-cousin' is the proper term), but also 6 dogs, 6 chickens, 5 horses, 3 cats, 2 ducks, 2 ostriches, and a partridge, no, wait, no partridge. But one of the dogs was a beagle named Bagel, while another was named Cream Cheese. I never get over that.

He had an opportunity to spend quality time with all of the animals except the ostriches; they lived on a neighboring farm. There was trepidation at first, but by the last day he was feeding the horses treats (albeit with some squirming). Two of the cats were so friendly, allowing him to pet them, that he was so confused to come home and realize our cat is a stand-offish beast that he began throwing things at her. He never warmed up to the chickens, but he enjoyed eating eggs. I did, too.

We also drove to the North Pole which, surprisingly enough, is in Colorado, near Colorado Springs, partway up the mountain to Pike's Peak. He had so much fun on the rides that at one point he lost his shoe. On even the most uninteresting rides, there were bigger kids breaking out into tears. The boy kept his cool, even going with me on the Scrambler and Tilt-a-Whirl, two of my favorites. I did come to the realization that most amusement park rides just involve sitting in something the goes in circles, and sometimes it goes up and down. The thrill is in the rides the go in circles very, very fast. Rides for smaller kids go in circles more slowly.

The most ok music you never heard of

I was putting some music on my work computer last weekend from college, stuff I got into while running the radio station, bands that no one knew then, and certainly no one knows now. But now I listen to them, and it's not even worth saying, "These guys are great, they're gonna be huge," because they had promise 6 or 7 years ago, didn't make it, and now probably work at JC Penney.

Who am I talking about? Baxter, The Audience, Citizens Utilities, Clare Quilty, The Controls, Jude, Kent, people like that.

Then there are people who still put out albums, but no one cares, like the Eels, Cracker, Gomez, Idlewild, Sarah Harmer and Juliana Hatfield. I don't even buy their new stuff.

I think Sarah Harmer may actually work at a Barnes and Noble. When I still worked there, they played her new cd and I kept saying, "Hey, this is Sarah Harmer, her last album was awesome, but this new one is just ok."

And no one cared.

I'm not a luddite, I'm just busy

Blogger's been trying to get me to switch to the new Beta Blogger, which sounds like something you ingest. I finally did it, when they all but forced me by changing the login page.

Yahoo email tried this trick on me a month or so ago. I switched for a day or two, then switched back. I'm not against advances in technology, they just changed formats so dramatically and I'd rather enjoyed the old format. If I wanted the new Yahoo, I'd get a Gmail account.

Sure, I'm cranky. It's another gray day in SF. Grey? Which is it? Gray or grey? I think one may be British. Or Canadian. I think the winter gloom has settled in and it's less nice than the preceding 4 or 5 months.

But I love the new Internet Explorer. They added a feature that I think Firefox had (maybe) with tabs at the top, so you can have a bunch of sites up w/o separate windows. This is great for multitasking, especially when your multitasking involves both multiple work projects and things completely non-work.

Delete December

I'd like to propose deleting December from the calendar. It's always a crazy time of the year. It's supposed to be all holidays and magic and tv specials, but I always start to feel tired right about now and then don't feel great until January.

Sure, some people would be upset. People with December birthdays (like M-N), retail managers, Santa Claus, but I think everyone could come together under the idea of getting a little rest instead of running around like mad.

What if everyone collectively took December off and went to an island somewhere? The Lost island seems big enough. Hell, I think the Harlem Globetrotters, everyone who's been in Menudo, and every underworked actor in California is on that island somewhere.

Anyway, December got off to a busy start yesterday (and yes, I realize it's only mid-November, but really, December has that kind of pull). I took the day off as a vacation day, b/c I need to use my vacation days before the end of the year, and won't otherwise. But by 'day off,' I mean 'day not physically in the office' and nothing more.

M-N was helping with her second birth, which lasted since Saturday, which meant it was me and the boy. I taught him bowling using empty water bottles and a ball. He didn't quite get the sport (particularly the scoring), but he liked seeing things get knocked over. Who doesn't?

We also went to the market to get some ground pork. While there, I signed a petition for a guy with very few teeth. I didn't think much of his lack of teeth, as the petition didn't really hinge on dental status, but it's how I remember him.

Later, we walked up to the hospital to hang out briefly with M-N. She had her own doctor's appt to go to, missing about 2 hours of the 100-hour birth she was assisting on. From our place to the hospital, there were people at streetcorners with clipboards and counters. They seemed to be tracking people who went by. I've seen this before, but have no idea what it is.

I wanted to ask someone yesterday, and there were plenty to ask. I must've passed at least 30 counters. But they're always so intently watching pedestrians that I don't want to disturb them. Other people did, and I tried to vicariously find out who they were, but I couldn't hear.

So my point is, no more December. Or, December on a tropical island for everyone.

Alice Munro is out to get me

On Friday, I was riding the train home. It was dark out (as this pesky daylight standard time brings on all too quickly). I was reading this Alice Munro collection. And I almost missed my stop.

If I go too far past my stop, I end up in the Pacific Ocean. Not good when it's dusk. That's feeding time for sharks.

Fortunately, I realized where I was just in time.

This morning, the same thing almost happened, but on the way in to work. If I miss that stop, I end up in the bay. I think sharks feed at dawn too.

So it's a good book. I finished "Meneseteung" yesterday. I guess Margaret Atwood said that's Munro's best. Despite my feelings about Atwood (after reading just one book), I may agree. First, it's about a poet. How can you not like a short story about a poet? It's also a quietly clever story. That's what I like most about Munro so far. She uses very ordinary lives and very simple stories but she's rather elegantly different. She writes with authority and confidence stories that at first feel like they belong in a first-semester fiction workshop. But where those stories would go awry, hers just get better.

I'll have to be careful on the train.

Movie Review: Antwone Fisher

Antwone Fisher: Torgo approves

The premise of this movie, 'young man in Navy with troubled past is led down path to redemption by psychiatrist and cute girl,' is dull and cliched (see: Good Will Hunting).

But "Antwone Fisher" still manages to be good. Denzel Washington, as it turns out, isn't a bad director. There's just enough style to his directing to give the sometimes leaden story some pull. Also, Derek Luke is very strong in the title role. Lost's Walt plays the young Fisher, and he's not bad either.

There's great sincerity at the heart of the movie, compensating for some weak writing early on. As the emotion builds, the writing improves. By the final acts, the writing is excellent.

To hear Fisher himself describe how the movie came to be in the extras, it's amazing to believe he could convince anybody to produce his story. He's very soft-spoken and, aside from not being able to type, he didn't know anything about writing, from character development to plot arc.

That may explain why so many elements in the film aren't original, but Fisher admitted writing was therapy for him, excising his demons, and his demons were vile enough to make a compelling movie.

Team Blue

Oh, and go Team Blue.

I was happy enough with the election to not even mind having to accept Joe Lieberman back into the fold.

My theory on why the Rumsfeld exit was put-off -- obviously not the stated reason, that Bush didn't want to be seen as making the move as a political move before the election. I think he thought it was an admission of defeat and he didn't want any more Iraq press than there needed to be pre-election. All those Santorum's out there would go nuts if he drew that much attention to not just his sorry self, but Rumsfeld too.

And Bolton's going away, too.

Everything's coming up Milhouse!

In-flight movie

We flew to Philadelphia on Monday, then back yesterday. We flew with a toddler, though, so I wasn't committed enough to either in-flight movie to give what I'd call a review, so let me just say this:
"Pirates of the Caribbean 2" -- sucked
"You, Me and Dupree" -- sucked

Pirates had some fun scenes to watch, and it never seemed to necessitate listening to the dialogue. Actually, when I did have the earphones on, nothing worth hearing was said, but some of the effects scenes were fun.

Dupree I completely didn't listen to. But it looked formulaic and dull.

We didn't get a ticket for the boy. Why? Because he's under 2 and until 2, he doesn't need one. We took a chance that there'd be empty seats. On the way out, there were extra rows, so it was no problem. On the way back, it was a full flight. Though it wasn't actually full. It was sold out, but I counted at least 4 empty seats in our area of the plane.

The US Airways people were, in general, snobby and rude about us flying with the boy. I called last week to ask about how we should check his car seat, and they were unhelpful and condescending. The ticket agent in SF was nice enough to move us to an open row on the way out, but the ticket agent in PHL was snappy and unpleasant. Actually, the curbside check-in guy questioned whether the boy could fly w/o a ticket, saying he was too old. I had his birth certificate to point out that he's not even 16 months yet, which shut him up.

Look, those tickets were expensive. It was over $300 each. We spent 12 hours on 2 planes. They didn't give us any food. They asked for $5 for cheap headphones or $5 for the food they couldn't give away before. Why would we pay $300 when there's almost always an open seat?

On the flight back, the full flight, we had a creepy weird guy next to us. He wasn't awful, but there was an open seat in both of the rows behind us. He could have easily moved to one of those. But the boy fell asleep early in that flight, so it wasn't too bad. But as we were landing, he was reading Men's Health. Apparently, every men's magazine is now based in soft-core porn. He seemed ashamed to be reading an article on sex next to us, so he was folding over the pages. Maybe the magazine designers who keep putting scantily-clad (I just like the word 'scantily') women all over their pages should think about people too embarassed to read their mags in public.

I did, fortunately, get to read about 4 Alice Munro stories, finishing a fifth on the train in this morning. So far, I'm thoroughly enjoying her writing. I've only bailed on one story. I'm going to try to review a block of stories this weekend b/c it's a big book and I think by the time I finish I'll have forgotten about the early ones.

Torgo vs. Rocky

I'm not sure why it's always Torgo vs. something, but it just needs to be.

Tonight I ran up the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps just like Rocky did. There's video of it. I'll post it what I get a copy. I wasn't alone. There were four of us. This wasn't the stated goal of the trip either.

I'd never been to Philly before 2006. I'd driven by it on the New Jersey Turnpike several times, I'd been to the outskirts looking at Haverford and other colleges, but never downtown.

Then, this year, I've visited four times, but until tonight, I'd still never gone into the city. It'd always been just into the airport, then out to some outlying town for meetings or interviews.

Tonight, though, we went downtown for dinner, then got lost trying to find the highway back to the hotel. We found ourselves within sight of the museum, therefore necessitating a stop.

I love "Rocky." That's a great movie. The sequels, eh. But the first one is terrific.

Post 267

So the labor M-N was assisting on ended up lasting a good 24 hours. That means I was still parent-in-charge until midday Friday, which gave me an opportunity to catch part of The Price Is Right. Bob Barker, I read, is retiring next spring. Sad as that may be, what I saw on Friday makes me understand why.

First of all, apparently no one won on the entire episode I saw. They play 6 games, then the showcase showdown. I saw just the last game, then the showdown. You'd think it'd be hard to have both contestants lose the showdown, but they both went over. One guy bid $25,000 on a showcase that was mostly just new carpeting and some dining room furniture.

But the main reason I think Bob is stepping down is the big wheel. He's been doing this so long, he knows where it'll land when the person begins the spin. It's sad. He says, "Ok, you got 25 cents in your first spin, you need 75. And, oh, it's not going to come around again." "But Bob, I haven't let go of the wheel yet." "Yep, sorry, next!"

In other news, I gave up on Proust. I was attempting to read Proust for a reason I can't now recall, probably something relating to its being a classic. I tried three times and couldn't get past page 2. And since I'm going to be travelling this month, I don't want to have a 700 page book I can't get into with me.

So I got a collection of Alice Munro's short stories. So far, so good. I read one and a half stories yesterday, the first being "Royal Beating," and I think this is a keeper. I got Jonathan Lethem's "Motherless Brooklyn" as a back-up.

Birth those babies, Goodbye Eko, I like enchiladas

M-N has been training to be a labor doula and she's currently helping her first mother have a baby. She's been at the hospital for about 9 hours now. I think it's great. Though it does make me wish people had babies on more of a schedule. I caught myself aligning a calculator and the pens on my desk today. I think I was channelling Rainster. Anyway, I hope the baby comes soon, b/c I'm bored.

I did make enchiladas. They were good. They're always good. I usually make enchiladas with beef and refried beans. I'm not sure if that's technically an enchilada. I just like them that way. This time, I didn't have refried beans, so I used black beans. Yeah, I'm bored.

But at least I'm not Mr. Eko, b/c he's dead. Yeah, AAA is dead (I didn't know what AAA meant, but then realized it's the actor's name abbreviated, b/c his actual name is incredibly long). In my on-going anti-Lost rant, here are my problems with this week's episode:
1) They kill off the good actors. This is probably b/c those actors can get better roles. Harold Perrineau had a lousy role on Lost, but is a great actor. His character isn't dead, but is just gone. AAA is a good actor too. Libby and Ana Lucia might've been good actors. I don't know. Shannon and Boone? Ok, they weren't good. My theory is flawed. But now I'm reminded of:
2) Nikki and the other new person. What the hell? Are they the new Shannon and Boone? Didn't they kill them off for a reason? Why add characters? Jesus, we're trying to simplify here. Kill off the new people! Save Eko!
3) The black smoke??!!?? That killed Eko? Ok. Fine. But at least use the episode in which the mysterious smoke kills a goddamn major character to explain something, anything about it.
4) Jack. No, wait, actually, I liked Jack's bit in this episode. Benry's now the best actor on the show, so I don't want Jack to kill him, but it'd be kinda neat if he did, though other than Benry, the other Others are bland and uninteresting. He's wanted dead by his former book club? (That was M-N's line, not mine.)
5) Nikki and the other new person. Really. C'mon. What the hell.
6) Major plot inconsistencies. Sayid just showed up this week sans Sun and Jin. Where were they? How quickly did he get back? Did he leave them for the polar bear? How much time passed? Lost seems to follow 24's pattern of real time, so did he transport across the island? Where are Rose and Bernard? Is this point 7?
7) Yes. Where are Rose and Bernard? Not that I like them, but they should watch out. All the actors of color get killed off. Michael. Walt. Eko. Ana Lucia. Rose is next. Why not Hurley? Because that'd be satisfying to watch. Also, all the tailies are being killed. Bernard is the only one left. Except Cindy, who got kidnapped and is apparently going to appear this year. Why? Why the hell not.
8) Jericho. Have you watched Jericho? I tried twice. It's like Lost in Kansas. There was a time when the concept of Jericho would've fascinated me. That time is gone.
9) Survivor. I've kept watching Survivor for some reason. It's actually more satisfying than Lost.
10) John Kerry. John Kerry?! He was 'breaking news' on CNN.com all day yesterday. How is that news? I voted already, can't I stop having to hear about this damn election? The democrats called me yesterday and I told them I already voted. She asked if I voted for Angelides for governor. I said yes. She said great. I thought, but he's going to lose. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a sexist, racist, wretched human being, and he's going to win. I somehow blame Lost for this.

What was my point? Oh yeah, I'm bored. And enchiladas. Enchiladas are good.