Movie Review: Torremolinos 73

Torremolinos 73: Torgo approves

Can you see what's happening in that picture? If so, it pretty much sums up the movie.

Alfredo is a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman. It's 1973. Sales are poor. So his company enlists him and his wife, Carmen, to help make an 'audiovisual encyclopedia of human reproduction' that will only be exported to Scandinavian countries.

Carmen, meanwhile, desperately wants to get pregnant. So their need for money and her wish to have a baby lead them to make some really funny porn.

This is a Spanish comedy. Like many Spanish films I've seen recently, it takes a plotline that in American would be as simple as "Orgazmo" and moves it somewhere more serious and somber.

Alfredo's film mentor claims to be a student of Ingmar Bergman, so eventually, Alfredo tries his hand at penning a Bergman-inspired non-porn feature film called "Torremolinos 73."

Having recently watched "The Seventh Seal" makes this sequence all the more comical.

Unlike "Orgazmo," there are some beautifully directed scenes, several nicely placed repeating images (like the staircase scene at the beginning and end), and a genuine, emotionally complex ending.

I found this on the Netflix instant viewing list, while looking through foreign films for a comedy because, seriously, the American comedy list includes things like "Short Circuit," "National Lampoon's Dorm Daze 2," and "Larry the Cable Guy: Git R Done."

Movie Review: Friends & Lovers

Friends & Lovers: Torgo disapproves

This is a movie of a play based on a book by Eric Jerome Dickey, one of my wife's favorite authors. It's not so much a movie based on a play as a recording of a performance of a play.

That shouldn't count against it. One of my favorites is "Vanya on 42nd Street," which is the same thing, only, as my wife put it, "less ghetto."

I don't call things ghetto, and neither does she. But if we did, "Friends & Lovers" would be ghetto.

There are two main problems worth noting:

1) It's a play that turns into a musical halfway through. The first hour, no songs. Straight up romantic comedy. Then, an hour in, a character bursts into song. Ok, random song in a movie. Happens in "Toy Story 2" and that's still an awesome movie. But then they keep coming. It becomes a full-fledged (ok, half-fledged) musical, and that's just not right.

2) It's a badly directed play. Several actors race through their lines so quickly they can't be understood. The blocking is all off. It's randomly preachy. It's just all around a rough production.

Man vs. Wild vs. Torgo vs. Prequel and/or Sequel

Mrs. Torgo, as she has never before been known and would most likely not enjoy being called, was supposedly on maternity leave for three months. She never really does vacations though, even when the 'vacation' is actually a recovery/bonding period with a newborn. She has what is known as "insane workaholicism."

This is much like Bear Grylls, a British guy who looks nothing like I thought he would after his show, "Man vs. Wild," was described to me by my coworker. Mr. Grylls, despite having a 2-year-old and a wife (or, perhaps because of the toddler and because he has little regard for his wife) goes and jumps out of airplanes in the middle of the wilderness and gives himself five days to get out alive, usually with just a canteen and a flint.

Like Mrs. Torgo, Bear has a higher purpose. He's trying to educate people on how to survive should they ever have a tv show and need ratings.

If I ever did what he does, I'd come home to changed locks and divorce papers. Why? Because he's completely mad. My coworker thinks he's nuts for drinking water squeezed from elephant dung, drinking his own pee, or peeing on a shirt and wrapping it around his face (pictured) to stay cool in the Moab desert.

But he's just trying to survive and the Discovery Channel apparently has a lot of competition.

Mrs. Torgo, also trying to survive, signed on with her first two post-leave clients in September. The first due date was the 10th which, if due dates meant anything, have given her just over 3 months off.

Then that woman went into labor on Thursday, which meant not only was the leave cut short, but I was to take charge of both Prequel and Sequel for an undetermined stretch of time.

No worries, though, about Prequel. We're professionals. Sequel, though, comes with new challenges. He nurses and I, despite my best efforts, don't lactate. (I am half-Italian and therefore am supposed to sweat olive oil, but unless he has some bread, a little vinegar, maybe some oregano and fresh cracked pepper, I'm useless.)

Fortunately, Mrs. Torgo planned ahead and froze some milk, leaving me with a delicate balancing act of portioning out the reserves without knowing how long they needed to last. Complicating things, though I could've just driven the boys to the hospital to let Sequel eat, she took the Torgomobile.

I went to this awesome website to watch "Man vs. Wild" and pick up some tips. I learned how to get out of the Rockies, how to survive in the Moab, and that the Costa Rican rainforest, much as I might have guessed, isn't a good place to get lost.

I also learned that Prequel takes advantage of the vulnerable moments when I'm feeding Sequel (much like a scorpion hiding in your shoes while you sleep) to seek out Total Destruction and Chaos.

We survived, though, and so did Bear.

Book Report: Curious George

Curious George: Torgo disapproves

I enjoy Curious George. Don't get me wrong. As children's characters designed to embody a toddler in whimsical, cartoon form, I'd like nothing more than to see George take out Elmo once and for all (perhaps in a tag team match wherein Clifford the Big Red Dog, representing children's characters who are gigantic and should really be terrifying, maybe even devouring children, triumphs over Barney, the purple dinosaur who looks carnivorous but actually just giggles and bounces and creeps me the hell out).

Back to George, here's my thing. The book. It's dated. It's dated badly. The most obvious example of this is the pipe-smoking:


The Man In the Yellow Hat smokes a pipe early in the book, and one of the sailors smokes a pipe while rescuing George from drowning, as George vomits water and whole fish, but when George lights up, you know this is from an era when doctors did commercials for cigarettes. That's a facet of the story notably missing from the current tv show and recent movie.

Then there's Africa. Oh, Africa. Heart of Darkness, Africa.

George is a monkey. Monkeys live in Africa (they live elsewhere, too, but I'm willing to accept that George is a monkey from Africa).

The Man in the Yellow Hat is a white guy. Ok, lots of white people out there.

But the Man in the Yellow Hat (TMITYH) goes to Africa to capture himself a wild monkey. He outwits the monkey by leaving his hat on the ground which George, ever so curious, tries to put on his head. When it covers his whole body, TMITYH rushes in a gets him in a bag.

Now I'm not pretending to tell you that this isn't how a guy from Boston who wants an African monkey doesn't go about getting one. I'm just saying that it has uncomfortable undertones.

Unfortunately, this origin story is faithfully recounted in the movie.

To preserve the racial allegory, George ends up being hauled off to jail later in the book for committing no serious crime other than being a monkey. Where is TMITYH when this happens? Off at his white-collar job, presumably, counting his money.

In fact, the iconic image on the cover of the book (see above), whimsical as it appears, is actually George being carted away.

So as much as I want to like Curious George, I find all this disturbing. I still read it to the Boy whenever he asks. And he still has a stuffed George he sleeps with (plus one picture on the wall). But sooner or later I'm going to transition him from Curious George Gets Denied Parole to The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Book Report: Travels in the Scriptorum by Paul Auster

Travels in the Scriptorum: Torgo disapproves

Paul Auster books are sometimes fascinating (The Music of Chance). He's a postmodernist in the worst sense of the word, always hyperaware of the story within a story, metafiction, and his own apparent awesomeness.

Why did I finish this book? I put down Kafka's the Castle, realizing it was more of a boring allegory than anything else. But Auster to me is like a familiar dinner recipe that isn't very good, but I know how to make it and it's comforting, though tedious.

I start an Auster book hoping to think words like brilliant and clever. I finished this one thinking words like jerk, loser and piss poor.

Ok, so what's it all about? Mr. Blank wakes up in a windowless room and he doesn't know who he is. Stop if you're already bored.

Turns out he's a character, sort of, visited by characters from Auster's other books. Speaking of metafiction -- Bret Easton Ellis's last book was like this -- though I found Glamorama and American Psycho captivating --and awful-- I couldn't bring myself to read it.

I'm officially done with metafiction. I've written poems and stories where the narrator is self-aware. Enough of that. I can't stand to read it anymore so I won't write it anymore. It's a cheap narrative device. It lacks soul, integrity, vitality. Why write just to write about you writing what you're writing about? It's like a commercial for a commercial for a product you don't need or want.

(Go here for a similarly-worded but professionally-assembled review that I read just to be sure my suspicions about the characters were correct.)

Movie Review: Orgazmo

Orgazmo: Torgo approves

This movie is worthwhile just for the song "Now you're a man" that plays over the opening and end credits. My favorite thing about the songs of Trey Parker and Matt Stone is that they're never the focal point of what they do. With South Park, Team America, and Orgazmo, the focus is on the crazy kids, puppet sex, Mormons in porn, but the music is unbelievably awesome.

The rest of this movie is just ok. It's the least funny movie I've seen by these guys, but it has its moments.

The idea of Trey Parker playing a Mormon missionary who stumbles onto a porn set and ends up as the world's biggest porn star is funny. Nothing else in the plot is much more than an Adam Sandler movie. Oh, heck, just go watch this: Now You're A Man

(sidenote (that occurs below): I think I realized why Netflix "Watch Instantly" movies are so random and often bad -- I think they're mostly independent movies. It must be some sort of low-licensing fee thing. Orgazmo and Welcome to the Dollhouse, the two we've watched like that, I believe are both independent.)

Movie Review: Unfaithful

Unfaithful: Torgo approves

The best thing about this movie is its basic competence at delivering what it promises.

It's an erotic thriller in which Diane Lane's character is a frustrated housewife, raising eight-year-old one-of-the-kids-from-Malcolm-in-the-middle, married to Richard Gere with brown hair, living in ridiculously nice house outside NYC. She meets a French guy, they have lots of sex, Richard Gere finds out, bad things ensue.

If you've ever seen an "erotic thriller" before, you'll be mollified. I don't watch many of these, so I enjoyed it. I was disappointed to learn that this movie's director also did Fatal Attraction and Indecent Proposal. I only recently saw the former and never saw the latter. I wasn't much interested in either because the plots were so obvious I didn't see the need. Plus, Demi Moore and Glenn Close -- not that hot.

Diane Lane's something else. And while the movie delivers on the 'erotic' part, I did take the time to wonder why we know nothing more about Frenchy than that he's French (Parisian? Canadian? Qu'est-ce que c'est?), has lots of books, and is good with the, how you say, freaky freak.

Also, even though every time I see him in a movie I think, wow, he's wooden and boring, Richard Gere is supposedly a sex symbol. We decided that part of the plot would've been better had his role been played by Kevin James. Then, also, it would have been a comedy. Still formulaic, but entertaining, like the King of Queens.

But no, and by the time we get to the 'thriller' part, it gets all clunky and dull. There's an ambiguous ending and the one deleted scene (of, like, 10, I had the patience to try) showed how the original end scene went on for another minute and completely changed everything. How do I feel about that? Eh.

So if you're looking for a by-the-books erotic thriller with someone much hotter than Demi Moore or Glenn Close, Torgo approves.

This speaks to me

I was just saying this earlier in the week:

Fucking Yankees, Reports Nation

The Benedictine Monkees

Speaking for Monkees fans everywhere, cool.

Torgo meets Google

My job involves talking to people who call and want help for their kids. Is that vague enough? Anyway, we have caller id. Google has a reverse phone book feature that enables me to sometimes look up a person's name and address by their phone number. I find this creepy, so I don't do it much.

In doing it the other day (and I usually do it to confirm spelling of a name, as I often speak with people who either struggle with English or call me from their cell phones -- I won't support legislation making English the official language, but I'd support legislation making cell phones illegal to use while driving, walking on the sidewalk, in elevators, on the subway, in restaurants, at baseball games, in parking lots, really anywhere where I have to listen to people's conversations or where people can make a huge safety hazard b/c they get so wrapped up in their stupid conversation that they forget they're crossing the street) ok, where was I? Oh yeah, Google.

I ended up at Veromi. It's a people search site but an especially creepy one. I typed in my name and found myself, my parents, siblings, wife, 6 of the 12 or so places I've lived, all for free.

Granted, Torgo is a rare name and when my colleague searched his name, 100 people who aren't him came up.

But still, I don't like the site.

How I Ended Up Sitting In Dog Pee Next To A Broken Bike On A Wednesday

The week before last, I went to get my bike to ride to work. The back tire was flat. I pumped it full of air, couldn't discern any noticeable leak, and started my ride. At a couple of red lighs, I checked the tire. It seemed ok.

I got to work and took it up to my office instead of locking it on the street. 20 minutes later, the tire was flat.

So I took the wheel off the bike and carried it on the train home. That weekend, I went to the bike shop around the corner and they replaced the tube. I was happy. They put the tire at a higher pressure than I'd been bold enough to do with my hand pump and cheap pressure gauge. Life was good.

I took the wheel back on the train to the office and got it back on the bike. I spent a good half hour messing with the brakes. The last time I took off the wheels to change from wide, mountain bike tires to narrow, city tires, I didn't quite get the back brakes right. The front has disc brakes which are apparently unbreakable. The back has -- whatever they're called -- brake pads that push against the tire rim. And they weren't quite pushing hard enough to effectively brake.

But I thought I had them on there pretty well. Both wheels are a little warped (this is a $200 Target Schwinn), so it would never be perfect.

I got on the bike at the end of the day and started the long, slow, uphill climb home. I work at the Montgomery St Muni stop. I got to the next stop (Powell) and knew something was amiss. Then, between Powell and Civic Center (where we start to get into the strip club/good place to score some heroin part of Market St, the back wheel started jiggling. Yes, jiggling. I stopped, flipped it over, tried my best at tightening what there was to tighten, and got back on.

It got worse as I made my way from Civic Center to Van Ness, the least nice place on my route to be stuck, working on a bike without tools or knowledge.

I pressed onward, knowing I couldn't take my bike on the train, especially not at rush hour, and that I wasn't close enough to a bus route I knew that would take me home (though I discovered one just this week when the trains were all busted), and I couldn't lock it up in this neighborhood, especially since I'd neglected to bring both of my locks, figuring I'd just bring it up to the office.

I made it up the hill to the Castro, then over by Duboce Park, and then I just gave up. The wheel felt like it was going to just fall off.

Duboce Park is one of many parks in SF that looks like the park on the opening to Full House. It's just a big grassy rectangle on a hill with Victorian houses all around. It's always full of people walking their dogs.

Thankful for cell phones, I called M-N who bravely put both boys in the car at the witching hour and headed over. I disassembled my bike and sat on a crest I thought (apparently incorrectly) was out of the common peeing territories and waited.

She rescued me. I got home. I took the wheel back to the shop. They said the axle broke. A $10 part, but $35 labor, probably not worth it for a year-old Target bike.

Now I need to get a new bike. So I'm going to likely go to REI and spend more than $200. I looked on this awesome site: PropertyRoom but I think it's better for someone who knows what he's doing, which isn't me.

That's my story.

Movie Review: Welcome to the Dollhouse

Welcome to the Dollhouse: Torgo approves

I love Netflix. They have a new feature where you can watch movies instantly from their website on your computer. It's not Mac compatible yet, but fortunately I have my work laptop with Windows.

So last night we watched Welcome to the Dollhouse. I remember not seeing this when it came out, though I remember being interested in it.

In general, it's a horribly bleak and awful movie. But it's trying to portray 7th grade, and 7th grade can be horribly bleak and awful. I remember people just like these characters from my junior high school.

One of the best things about this movie is that it doesn't fall into the Little Miss Sunshine happy ending on stage (see also: Napoleon Dynamite, About a Boy, and many others). But it does end with the main character on a stage in front of her tormentors. All those other movies where everyone suddenly loves the protagonist seem contrived (as they are) next to this film.

That's not to say it's fun to watch. Again, bleak and awful. Awkward and uncomfortable. But once it's over, I realized it's a movie that is more like 7th grade than anything else I've seen. It's not the Wonder Years so much as the painful years.

Movie Review: Elizabeth

Elizabeth: Torgo approves

I was struck by the similarities between this movie and The Godfather. Both are about a member of a powerful, violent family who is reluctant to accept his or her destiny. Like Michael Corleone, Princess Elizabeth knows she'll have to sacrifice herself, her love, everything, in order to transform into an effective, controlling leader.

Besides the plot and theme similarities, the filmmakers with both movies chose to show the transformation with similar images, as precisely alike as the random stand-up sex scene (here, it's Joseph Fiennes instead of James Caan) and the official rise to power/bloodbath to take out all enemies climax.

I wanted to see this movie because I heard the sequel is coming out. M-N used to teach this era in history, so she was an excellent resource for my random 16th Century England questions.

All around, this is a great movie. Cate Blanchett is terrific. Geoffrey Rush is terrific. Joseph Fiennes is a little too much of a pretty boy (and it's definitely odd that this came out the same year as Shakespeare in Love, as though Elizabethan pretty boy's are his thing).

The whole production feels complete and exact. I think one of the reasons I didn't see it when it first came out was the poster. It makes Elizabeth look like a maniacal tyrant, sinister, much like her half-sister, Bloody Mary. I wasn't interested in a period piece like that.

But she's much more playful than that. The scene where she passes the Act of Uniformity is just fun to watch, with the young queen flexing her power and literally bouncing around in her seat. I'm looking forward to the second movie (and the possible third -- though that looks to complete the Godfather arc, where she's outlived everyone and dies alone).