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Saturday, February 11, 2012

Miscellany

"Hi.  I susbscribe to ***********.  I want to renew my subscription, but I was wondering if you offered any kind of teacher discount."

"Oh, are you a teacher."

"No.  I'm just curious.  I also want to know if you have discounts for cops, firemen, and taxidermists."

Friday, February 10, 2012

And Schizophrenia Makes Really Good Omelettes

Awhile back, I wrote about a commercial for Abilify, an anti-depressant from Bristol-Myers Squibb. The animated commercial featured an obviously depressed cartoon-lady and an avatar of "depression," represented by a (frankly adorable) googly-eyed, floating black blob.  Now, I am no latter-day Don Draper--except for my perfect, perfect face--but it struck me that, if an advertiser wants to peddle a "cure" (or at least a treatment) for a disease (or "disease"), said advertiser might think twice before representing the disease as something you want to pet.

Shows you what I know!

The Abilify people have introduced a new commercial that actually doubles down on the cuteness factor.  No longer is cartoon-lady's depression merely a floating black blob; now, depression is a big, floating, googly-eyed blue bathrobe!  So, depression not only keeps this lady company, it keeps her cozy and warm!  AND it resembles Cookie Monster, to boot!

Cure depression?  I want to give it a hug!

Thursday, February 9, 2012

The New Season

I have mixed feelings about the whole "found footage" trope in modern motion pictures.  My first memorable experience of this genre was "The Blair Witch Project."  You may recall that, when that. . .let's say "movie"--came out, it was accompanied by a certain gastrointestinal phenomenon; to wit, numerous moviegoers found themselves nauseated during screenings.  This had little if anything to do with the copious amount of tears and mucous streaming down Heather's (Heather Donahue) face
and much to do with the amateurish nature of the film's "shaky-cam" cinematography.  The effect of the movie's visual style on the stomachs of some audience members was comparable to seasickness.  Granted, the. . . let's call them filmmakers--wanted the movie to look "handmade" and rough.  They probably didn't want to send legions of audience members running to bathrooms, desperately struggling to retain the popcorn and Goobers they had unsuspectingly wolfed down.  Your-Not-So-Humble-Correspondent was one of those theatergoers so affected, and the sense memory of that awful afternoon has made me somewhat leery of "found footage" cinema ever since.

In fairness, though, filmmakers have apparently mastered the technique of pressing the image-stabilization button on their steadicams, and these movies don't nauseate people quite as often as they once did.  And if the proliferation of "Paranormal Activity" movies is any indication, people still seem to enjoy this technique.  Now, "found footage" has thoroughly entered the realm of cinematographic cliche, and it is ready to expand its reach into the next frontier, television.

"The River," created by two "Paranormal Activity" writers, Michael R. Perry and Oren Peli, tells the story of the search for Emmett Cole (Bruce Greenwood), a television naturalist gone missing in the Amazon.  A camera crew follows Cole's son, Lincoln (Joe Anderson), his wife, Tess (Leslie Hope), and a handful of Cole's other friends and colleagues as they travel down the river.  Along the way, they encounter numerous supernatural beings--ghosts, intelligent dragonflies, really creepy dolls (and this was just in the first two episodes!)--and find themselves frequently in mortal danger.

As a science-fiction/fantasy/adventure, the show is entertaining enough.  Of course, the main interest of the show arises out of the found-footage conceit: We are ostensibly watching the footage of this group's adventures, which suggests, of course, that this whole story has already happened, and is not simply unfolding in front of us as we look on.  And therein lies the problem.  The presumed "hyperrealism" of the found footage genre makes viewers acutely aware of anything that suggests fictionality: I am willing to suspend disbelief and accept that demonic forces reside in the depths of the Amazon rain forest.  But I become skeptical when this intentionally rough-looking, unpolished story is accompanied by background music.  And a show that depends for its effect upon "chance" glimpses of otherworldly shenanigans caught fortuitously by an unsuspecting cameraman will suffer if a viewer (such as myself) finds himself wondering, "Wait, who the hell is filming this?"  (The show gets around this problem somewhat by explaining that Cole's ship was otufitted with dozens of cameras, the better to capture everyday life.  This strikes me as cheating, somewhat, but even so, there are times where I found myself thinking "How many different cameras did Cole need to set up in random doorways?")

I realize that this may come across as nit-picking. (WOS: "There are intelligent dragonflies possessing people, but the music is what's unbelievable?!?")  Still, in a work where the style IS the substance, all these technicalities matter.  While the found-footage format goes down the Amazon River, it needs to be careful not to jump the shark.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Not in the Darkest Imaginings of Graham Greene. . . .

Of course, no one ever said that the life of an international diplomat was all brandy and sex tourism, but the news from today's Times is still harrowing nonetheless.  If you prefer not to be harrowed, may I suggest you check out "Sleep Talkin' Man," this week featuring delightful pictures of sloths.  Otherwise, read on at your own risk.
"After the American troops departed in December, life became more difficult for the thousands of diplomats and contractors left behind. . . . Within days, the salad bar at the embassy dining hall ran low. Sometimes there was no sugar or Splenda for coffee. On chicken-wing night, wings were rationed at six per person." ("U.S. Planning to Slash Iraq Embassy Staff by Half")
Dear. God.

Diminished salad bars?  No sugar?  OR Splenda?  ONLY SIX CHICKEN WINGS ON CHICKEN-WING NIGHT?!?!  To what kind of barbarity are we reducing our noble diplomats?  Even Somalian refugees can expect at least eight wings each on chicken-wing night!  I'm fairly certain that such deprivation runs afoul of several clauses of the Geneva Convention.  A whole sub-section--right after the bits about waterboarding--protects the rights of those held as prisoners of war or serving in diplomatic capacities to have access to a "break room" with adequate coffee supplies; no less a figure than Henry Kissinger faces indictment before the International War Crimes Tribunal for advocating policies during the 1970s denying Half-and-Half to Vietnamese POWs.

Alert Amnesty International!  Alert the Red Cross!  Alert Wing Stop!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Physical Miscellany

My understanding--and admittedly it is a limited understanding--is that the reason, on a physical level--literally on the level of physics--that people can't walk through walls (or that any solid objects can't pass through each other) is because of the negatively charged electrons that spin around the outside of the atoms that make up . . . everything.  Thus, when you bump into a wall, what's really happening is the electrons in you are banging into the electrons of the wall, and the "like" charges repel.  This, if accurately described, is elementary physics.

What I find interesting is that, if this description IS true, it suggests that--in what would surely be a one in a googolplex occurence--if all of a person's atoms lined up JUST right in relation to the atoms of a wall, then that person could, indeed, walk right through said wall.  Which I think would be really cool.

That is all.

Monday, February 6, 2012

An Appreciation

The other night, I watched "Bad Teacher."  To answer your first question--"Why?"--I can only claim utter boredom and the fact that it, like Mt. Everest, was "there."  Unsurprisingly, it wasn't a particularly good movie.  It wasn't especially awful, either.  Overall, it was essentially just a movie that exists and that will fade into deserved cinematic obscurity before too much more time has passed.

The movie stars Cameron Diaz as Elizabeth Halsey, the eponymous "bad teacher."

(DIGRESSION: Do you suppose Cameron Diaz and Salma Hayek were in the same neo-natal unit and their nametags accidentally got switched?  EOD)

Elizabeth is a foul-mouthed, drug-abusing, alcoholic, gold-digger who for some never-explained reason was hired as a teacher, but who plans to leave the profession as soon as she marries her rich fiance.  Said fiance, however, splits up with Elizabeth at the beginning of the movie, necessitating a return to the profession she hates--at least until she can find another suitably wealthy paramour.  Enter Justin Timberlake as Scott Delacorte, a dreamy substitute teacher who happens to be the scion of a wealthy family.  Elizabeth sets her sights on Scott, but he finds himself drawn to Ms. Squirrel (Lucy Punch), a treacly by-the-book teacher who quickly establishes herself as Elizabeth's nemesis.

So far, what I've described sounds like a fairly typical slapstick romantic comedy, if elevated (if that's the word) to an R-rating for its liberal profanity and drug use.  What saves the movie from absolute mediocrity, however, is a surprisingly charming performance by Jason Segel.




Segel plays Russell Gettis, a gym teacher who has set his sights on Elizabeth.  What makes his performance so, frankly, extraordinary, is that, in a film filled with two-dimensional characters who are largely unlikable even in their two-dimensionality, Segel somehow manages to make Gettis seem like a real, likable fellow.  At times, I found myself thinking that his character had wandered in from another film--or maybe from the audience--as he observes the inane goings-on around him with an attitude of amused tolerance.  Segel is not especially gorgeous, but pretty much from the moment he enters the frame, you know that he will ultimately win Elizabeth's heart, if only because he is the only "actual" person she encounters.  Indeed, the only thing that redeems Elizabeth is the fact that she is ultimately attracted to--and attractive to--Russell: If he likes her, she must have SOMETHING going for her, right?

I'm not sure how good an actor Segel is--I don't think I've seen him in anything else.  But whatever his level of talent, he is to be commended for elevating a less-than-appealing movie into something more than it has any right to be.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Super Sunday

The football season wraps up today, and, rather than belabor the obvious point that the Giants will beat the Patriots, I would like to comment on the egregious miscarriage of justice perpetrated last night.  Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who admittedly had an OK season, was named league MVP.  How the writers could have overlooked Peyton Manning is beyond me.  True, the man was injured and played not a single down this season, but look what happened to his team.  Last year, and pretty much every year since Manning joined them, the Colts have been legitimate contenders in the NFL.  Without him, they lost their first 14 games of the season, became a national laughingstock, and slipped so far down in the standings that they won the top pick in this year's NFL draft, where they are expected to pick Andrew Luck, the highest-rated quarterback prospect to come into the league since. . . well, since Peyton Manning.

If the MVP award is presented to the player most valuable to his team, I fail to see how Peyton Manning wasn't the unanimous winner.

Go Giants!