Sneak peeks

Trailers for three of the four most anticipated English-language movies of the year are up. Check it out.

1. The Black Dahlia. Brian De Palma in the middle of a third renaissance, and even though he's not exactly the auteur you turn to for a "true crime" story, the infamous Black Dahlia slaying may just pack all of De Palma's obsessions -- voyeurism, lust, whodunnit, and well, obssessiveness -- into one neat Ellroy-tied box. And yes, the trailer looks like a movie nerd's wet dream.

2. Inland Empire. David Lynch's three hour opus. No trailer that I can find. All I know is this is Lynch's follow-up to one of the best movies of the decade has wrapped and is ready to go. Good enough for me.

3. The Departed. Already inducted into the Movies for Guys Hall of Fame on the basis of the cast and plot alone, this American remake of Infernal Affairs could be Marty's Heat or Scarface, the kind of dude classic destined to be referenced in a Sports Guy column about the NBA Draft ten years hence. From the looks of the trailer, though, Leo lacks the stature and gravitas in a role Tony Leung was born to play (it's a role perfect for Pacino circa Serpico), and Damon doesn't exactly project that slippery, snake-oil salesman charm that comes so naturally to Andy Lau in this role (alternaverse casting: Alec Baldwin, 1991). (The original Infernal Affairs worked only because it was so perfectly cast.) Still, it's Marty, Jack Nicholson, and a crackerjack plot -- so it's unlikely to suck even if doesn't completely rock.

4. The Fountain. Could very well be awful, though I'm a sucker for time-travel romances. Gotta admit the trailer dampens my enthusiasm, as it comes off looking like The Cell meets Possession. But here's hoping Mr. ADDronofsky has one awesome picture in him.

Incinerate - Sonic Youth (d. Claire Denis)

Context: Excited by the announcement that French auteur Claire Denis has lent her visual genius to Sonic Youth, I began trolling YouTube every couple of weeks, finally locating the video today.

Thought: In L'Intrus, Trouble Every Day, and Friday Night, Denis's camera transforms the human body into something like an alien landscape, the contours of human flesh lit and shot like a desert on Io. Astonishingly radical in a narrative film, Denis' tight shots of pixellated body parts are little more than just another decorative effect in the music video context.

Cool video, but more intriguing in concept than practice, sorta like Sonic Youth's score for Olivier Assayas's Demonlover.

Jon Stewart on GOP internet follies

Hilarious, especially the graphic representation of Ted Stevens' brain around the 4:30 mark. And in case you're wondering why his name sounds familiar, this is the same Senator Stevens who famously threw whiny-ass titty fit over the Senate plans to kill his "Bridge to Nowhere" pork project. Now this moron wants to create a two-tiered internet and effectively ban internet poker.

A pat on my back

Hey, why have a blog if you can't brag on it from time to time, right? Today in Slate, Jack Shafer explores the incredible phenomenon of the NY Times' "What Shamu Taught Me About Marriage" article, which has topped the web site's most e-mailed list dating back to at least the Carter administration. The Times piece itself I found unremarkable and obvious, and like Shafer I long held a theory about the enduring popularity of animal articles and relationship features -- which I guess is not exactly a revelation to anyone who pays attention to the Times' "Most e-mailed" chart (1. "How to Calm Your Dog with Cell Phone Ring Tones" 2. "The Stepfather: Perils of Dating Your Mom's Ex-hubby." 3. "Lupe, an Abyssinian, Finds Comfort in the Meatpacking District", etc.). Shafer traces the Shamu article's astonishing popularity to the way the author andheadline writer combine both "mundane" mainstays -- animals and relationships. That's probably right.

But maybe readers just took to heart the column's thesis? What then? Upon re-reading the piece today, I realized something: the basic premise was employed by a post I made six months back, in an open letter to my girlfriend (whose resemblence to my actual girlfriend, if any, is purely coincidental -- except when it's not). We both say: Ladies, quit the nagging and instead try a little lovin'. A little positive reinforcement may very well turn that caterpillar of a boyfriend into a beautiful butterfly. Or something.

Sure, my post was labored while the Times' piece was breezy and charming. But genius advice is genius advice. And you fifteen loyal readers saw it here first.

Armageddon thwarted

You might think the greatest threat facing our great civilization is the Islamist/jihadi/Islamofascist menace. If so, maybe our top priority should be to guard against terrorist attacks, especially if they attack our treasured petting zoos in Indiana. Or, if you caught Al Gore's movie (or better yet, read Elizabeth Kolbert's Notes from a Castastrophe), you might be rightfully terrified by the planetary disaster that awaits if carbon emissions continue at our current pace. Or perhaps you're most concerned about North Korea and their errant missles, or Iraq, which is has just erupted (again).

Look, I won't belittle you: these are all legitimate fears. But you'd be mistaken to believe that these should be our top national priorities. Let's instead turn to our elected representatives, who, in their infinite wisdom, have identified the greatest threat to our way of life: a fence-jumping Mexican who arrives on our shores, burns Old Glory for kicks, and wants nothing much than to destroy the sacred bonds of married people everywhere by marrying some dude out in El Paso. Worst of all, this America-hating homo illegal siphons away American dollars by playing internet poker! To rub it in, this donk types in "en fuego," "tu es un pesco!" and other non-English taunts with his dirty brown fingers as he sucks out on red-blooded American males whose only crime is to flop top pair against the villain's gutshot draw. Suffice it to say, these dark degenerates must be stopped.

Budget deficits, Iran, Gitmo, health care costs and all that crap can, of course, be consigned to subcommittee hell. The most urgent point of business is to do something about internet poker. Make no mistake: a clear and gathering threat is on the horizon. If we fail to act, those ragtag Full Tilt bandits will seek to shut down Wal-Mart, take away our guns, and force us to speak French while praying to Allah. We can't let that happen. We must defend our way of life, with treasure and blood if need be.

There are those who don't think Congress can stop internet poker completely. Well, sure. But they sure can stop the flow of fish. And for that, we have our great GOP congressional leadership to thank once again. Thank you, Roachman Delay...or should I thank that new guy, whathisname?

One of the most dangerous criminals alive?

Pedro's pitching tonight

One of the greatest, and most unheralded web inventions is the gamecast/gameday. Live play-by-play of baseball games, coupled with following witty, rambunctious internet message board game-threads, made you feel like you're watching a game at a bar with your buddies, even as you're simultaneously trying to churn out an outline in your dorm room.

In my late twenties, spent in Berkeley and Ann Arbor, every fifth day during the summers and fall held out a special promise. It's not that breathless anticipation you feel when you're going on a date with a woman you've fallen for. That would be overstating it. But as soon as you wake up, the air seems, well, fresher, more oxidized even. You sense that something electrifying might happen that night (or afternoon). That's because Pedro's taking the hill, and if you can't be in front of the computer or tv, you might miss a 17 K two hit masterpiece. The sheer dominance is something else (Pedro's run with the Sox is arguably the best run of any pitcher ever), but what made Pedro one of a kind was the way he'd throw five consecutive change-ups, or an unhittable 3-2 bender to strike out Albert Belle or Ken Griffey, Jr. To paraphrase those (awesome) Nike ads on Brazilian football, Pedro pitches beautiful-- incomparably so.

I'd trade my left nut to be in Fenway an hour from now to give Pedro a thunderous ovation loud enough to shatter those plastic Coke bottles perched atop the Green Monster.


* The only game I saw this year was at Dodger Stadium, where I saw Pedro pitch opposite Derek Lowe. The Sports Guy said all there is to say about this game straight out of the Twilight Zone. All I can add is I hope Pedro does better tonight (and also: the Mets fan in Reserve section 8, row N, seat 8, please shut the fuck up. Everyone in the stadium will thank you.) I can't root for him to win, but I hope he matches zeroes with Josh Beckett for 7, and the Sox win it in the 9th. On that note, I've got to rush home to catch the game.

** The miracle of technology has brought us mlb.tv, so you can catch most non-blackout games of all your favorite teams, right on your computer screen.

*** It also included immediate access to baseball's equivalent of Bible study, Peter Gammons' densely packed Sunday Globe columns. Formerly, I had to troll Barnes & Nobles or Cody's Books on Monday, open up their big out-of-town Sunday paper, and savor the sports pages secretly by the magazine rack. Thank you, world wide web, for sparing me from such future indignities. Gammons, who's now nearly as identifiable with baseball as John Madden is with football, suffered an brain aneurysm yesterday. Sounds like he's on the road to recovery. Best wishes to him.

NB: Wow. The Fenway crowd did Pedro right, but he had nothing tonight. Maybe the emotions got to him. Fastball in the mid-80s wasn't gonna get it done, especially not against the deepest lineup in baseball. Also, when did the NL become AAAA? After noticing the staggering disparity between the leagues, I had the inkling to start betting AL "across" -- AL teams on every Interleague matchup -- on Monday. Didn't get around to doing it. At $20 a game, I think I would made a couple of hundred bucks over the last three days. The AL has been the superior league for the better part of the decade, but the gap has never been so pronounced.

al deada

Depending on who you ask and when you ask it, Abu Musab Zarqawi is either the cunning and fearsome leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, or a hapless poseur. Others, including the this lengthy Atlantic profile, say the Zarqawi we know is mostly myth. And we should be rightly skeptical of information provided by the Pentagon on anything.

But whatever the case, it's great news that Zarqawi has been killed. Yes, we can add even more caveats: it's true that al Qaeda in Iraq is just a bunch of violent maniacs hated by the locals, and that the real problem, the inability for the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds to find a political solution to patch up ancient divisions, won't get resolved even if AQ in Iraq is completely eliminated. As with the Saddam capture, this is not a turning point.

But let's also be clear. This maniac and his band of foreign terrorists have been going around beheading people, bombing hotels, bombing civilians, and just killing Iraqis and American soldiers alike with ruthless efficiency. Zarqawi disrupted the furtive attempts at peace and successfully helped foment chaos in parts of Iraq. There are few tangible goals our military in Iraq can achieve in Iraq at this point, but killing Zarqawi has gotta be right near the top. Good job.