- Although I worry that Michael Cera might be getting himself stuck in the trap of making and remaking the same movie over and over (in this case, Juno/Superbad in a cycle of movie recycling) and his new flick, the boy-meets-girl-in-the-city-that-never-sleeps romantic comedy “Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist” is a movie in that same general vein, it’s still a fun watch. The movie basically follows high school seniors Nick (Michael Cera) and Norah (Kat Dennings) as they drive around in a Yugo the pumpkin color of Cinderella's coach after midnight in New York. Predictably, the two come from different backgrounds -- he's a son of suburban New Jersey, the one straight dude in a queercore rock band and she's a wealthy, city-dwelling daughter of a record-industry executive. Initially, they can't stand each other, but find they have a rabid love of indie rock, hole-in-the-wall Lower East Side clubs, a skill for clever banter and a luminous fun-loving outlook on life. They meet in a club at a time when Nick is nursing a bruised heart following a breakup with a shallow, vapid chick named Tris (Alexis Dziena). Nora has love troubles of her own in the form of a mooching, wannabe-musician boyfriend (Jay Baruchel). Norah and Tris are private school classmates and longtime frenemies, but the movie doesn’t dwell on that aspect. Instead, we find Norah as she is accompanying her hard-partying best friend, Caroline (Ari Graynor), in pursuit of an elusive underground band rumored to be playing somewhere in the city. Nick’s gay bandmates recognize that Norah would be a good match for their buddy and start working to set the two of them up. The plot unfolds from there; I won't spoil it for you, other than to say it’s funny and for the most part, manages to be just imaginative and stay away from enough clichés to be a good movie…..
- Bands dorks, know your place. You are to march in straight lines, blow into your various metal instruments or bang on your assigned drums, wear butt-ugly uniforms and serve at the target for our jokes. You are not, under any circumstances, to draw attention to yourself in a way that necessitates the rest of us spending any -ANY - time on you and your antics. So this lesson goes out to the University of Wisconsin marching band, which has been suspended indefinitely while allegations of alcohol abuse and sexual misconduct are investigated. The band has been banned from performing at Saturday’s football game between the No. 18 Badgers and No. 14 Ohio State at Camp Randall Stadium. The university made the announcement at a news conference today, saying the behavior is similar to the actions that put the band on probation in 2006. At that time, the allegations against the idiots in the UW band included having seminude band members alleged to dance suggestively in front of other band members and forcing female band members to kiss other women to be allowed to enter bathrooms on a bus. The message must not have gotten through, because the same sort of actions are at the heart of this new mess. The problem is serious enough that band director Mike Leckrone, in that capacity since 1969, made the decision to suspend the band for a game for the first time in his tenure.
No specific details were immediately released about the behavior, but it has been confirmed that it involved inappropriate alcohol use, hazing and sexualized behavior. This wouldn’t be happening if these bands dorks knew their place. Quit trying to act like badasses and like a sports team and starting acting like the band dorks you are. In case you forgot, it was actions like these that led the university to establish a written code of conduct for the band in 2000. Then, in February 2007, the marching band's assistant director Michael Lorenz resigned after an internal report criticized his treatment of a female colleague during a rowdy band trip to Michigan in 2006. After that debacle, then-Chancellor John Wiley threatened band members with losing performance and travel privileges. Now, it appears that the tradition of lewd, lascivious and just plain classless behavior has survived within the Wisconsin band and that much more serious punishment is needed…….
- Whaddya know, more trouble in Iraq caused by the knobs at Blackwater, shocker! After starting unprovoked firefights and killing civilians like they were going out of style, now we learn that back in 2006,
an M4 machine gun sent to Iraq by the Blackwater private security firm somehow disappeared from the company's storage facility in Baghdad and was later discovered during a US military operation. The operation in question apparently took place against suspected insurgents and has kept secret until now. It adds fuel to the fire caused by allegations that Blackwater shipped weapons and silencers to Iraq without proper licensing, allegations that are already under investigation by a federal grand jury in North Carolina. As you’d expect, the liars at Blackwater maintain that all of their weapons “are shipped in accordance with U.S. export control regulations.” I would believe that…..except I don’t. But how could I, what with these allegations and the fact that right now, at this moment, a second federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. is investigating a shooting incident involving Blackwater guards that led to the deaths of 17 civilians. Indictments in that case could come as early as next week, so things are clearly not looking up for Blackwater. Just another great fringe benefit coming from the Mess O’Potamia, W.’s own personal Vietnam, the war/debacle in Iraq……
- I literally don’t know what to say. Right now, up is down, black is white, water is dry, heat is cold and nothing makes sense. The world as we know it has ceased to exist. The one true thing, the one fact we could all rest assured of no matter what else happened, was that the Juice was Teflon in a courtroom, an untouchable figure whose deal with the devil basically allowed him carte blanche to do whatever he wanted here on Earth and to do so free of criminal prosecution. But somehow, some way, that ended today when O.J. Simpson was found guilty in a Las Vegas courtroom of robbing two sports-memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a Vegas hotel room. The 61-year-old former football star could now spend the rest of his life in prison, which would be a sobering thought if not for the fact that he should already be 13+ years into that life sentence after (allegedly) murdering his ex-wife and her boyfriend in 2004. He should be 13+ years into that sentence, but the aforementioned deal with the devil saved him and I figured it would save him here. Now….I don’t know what to believe in anymore. Sentencing has been set for Dec. 5, so there is still time for a miracle of some sort to make the world right again, but I have a sinking feeling that one might not be coming. If you are keeping score at home, the Juice was convicted of kidnapping, armed robbery and 10 other charges, all stemming from his asinine plan hatched last year that involved O.J. recruiting five men and storming into a room at a hotel-casino to retrieve what the Juice claims was sports memorabilia belonging to him. In an ironic twist, this verdict came 13 years to the day after Simpson was cleared turning his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, into human Pez dispensers. Nice of defense attorney Yale Galanter try to play the payback card, implying that the jury was looking to even the score with the Juice for skating on his double murder. “I don't like to use the word payback,” defense attorney Yale Galanter said. “I can tell you from the beginning my biggest concern ... was whether or not the jury would be able to separate their very strong feelings about Mr. Simpson and judge him fairly and honestly.” No, Yale, I think they did judge him fairly and honestly, I just can’t believe that they did……
- I’m starting to become immune to Hollywood strike talks. Whether it’s actors, writers, producers, or even in the theater industry, I’ve just built up such a tolerance to any guild or union in the entertainment industry threatening a work stoppage because there is always at least one of them doing so at any given time. This time around, it’s the Screen Actors Guild, whose negotiating committee voted Wednesday to support a strike authorization vote. It’s a tactic meant to break stalled contract talks with Hollywood studios and the recommendation, approved 11-2, moves on to the guild's national board for review. In order to be put into motion, the plan would ultimately need approval of 75 percent of the some 120,000 voting guild members. “My personal opinion is, yes, we will achieve a strike authorization,” said Anne Marie Johnson, a spokeswoman for Membership First, a faction of actors that had controlled SAG's national board until it narrowly lost its majority in elections last month. Right now, contract talks dealing with prime-time TV shows and movies have been at a standstill since the previous contract expired June 30 and actors have been working under the terms of the old deal in hopes of avoiding a repeat of a 100-day writers strike that ended in February. That strike pissed off a lot of people, wasted a lot of time and cost a lot of money, what with shutting down production of dozens of TV shows and stalling many movie projects. Its estimated cost to the Los Angeles area economy was an estimated $2.5 billion. The studios, represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, are trying to use the current downward-spiraling state of the economy as a reason for actors not to strike. “It is unrealistic for SAG negotiators now to expect even better terms during this grim financial climate,” the AMPTP said in a statement. Even as they began the process of striking, the actors’ guild also called for talks with the AMPTP to resume, although I’m not sure how genuine that offer is at this point. That’s doubly true when you consider that the producers' chief negotiator, J. Nicholas Counter III, declined to resume talks because SAG continues to insist on terms the companies have rejected. In other words, SAG says they want to restart talks, knowing full well that the studios will say no and then it will be the studios who look bad. The major issue in all of this continues to be the guild’s desire for union coverage of all shows made for the Internet, regardless of budget, and residual payments for actors on made-for-Internet shows that are reused on the Internet. The AMPTP continues to stick by a final offer it made June 30, a proposal they claim is worth $250 million in additional compensation over three years.
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