Response to someone's question about favorite TV shows and most disappointing movies

On youtube there's a collaborative channel I follow called Trannystar Galactica where someone will ask a question, usually on a topic related to the trans experience directly but not always, and this week's question for the group was on something that I like to opine about. So I posted a video response. We could maybe call it my latest vlog entry, but we don't have to!

Gumbasia

Art Clokey, the creator of Gumby and Davey and Goliath, the two great, somewhat surreal claymation kid's shows from the sixties passed away this last Friday (January 8th.) Here is his first claymation effort, from 1955.

Too Damn Late -- Sarah Palin's Special Comment

She's no Keith Olbermann



Video by madduane, written by Mark Day.

Mark's words are definitely written from a guy point of view, I think juxtaposing a liberal straight guy's views on a puppet of Sarah Palin is illuminating; at least it is to me.

I Can't Believe It!!!

Paul Blart: Mall Cop is still in the top 5 movies, after 8 weeks in release, and has earned an estimated domestic gross of about $135 million. That Kevin James must be really HI-LARIOUS! I've always thought Kevin James is to Jim Belushi as Jim Belushi is to John Belushi, so I guess what this really means is that we really need John Belushi right about now...

Does Anybody Know...

Of music, art, film, etc. made by youthful (say, in their twenties) artists currently that is vital, well made, sincere, not celebrity-obsessed, not status-quo upholding, fun, positive, meaningful, poetic, subversive...

In other words, are the youth of today making art? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I'm kind of despairing at the moment. Everything I'm seeing seems like recycled fashion magazine fodder. No new ideas. No thought for the future. No imagining of anything that doesn't already exist.

Show me something, please. I need to know it's out there.

What the Frak is Going On?

Galactica is probably my favorite television show ever. It's Space Opera, with a capital "O", but it's very human scaled at the same time.

I am continually amazed that they were able to whittle the late 70s bombastic Glen Larson albatross down to a beautiful, story-driven show about the power of love.



Here is a short film recapping the first 3 seasons, hitting all the major arcs of the show, in 8 minutes. It's very compressed, as indicated by the sped-up narrator, but it is amazingly mostly there. All you're missing is the details.

11th Hour

Recently saw this movie & it did get me thinking.

I can't say I think it's a great popcorn movie, it's rather dense contentwise, but it is thought provoking and at the end of it, I felt like I wanted to do something about the problem.

At the time, I found myself comparing it to The Day After Tomorrow, because while the Roland Emmerich potboiler has zero credibility, it is a good popcorn movie. I've probably watched it 20 times (if not more), because I think Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhall are both really good in it, acting their hearts out over a script that is actually overly praised if you call it drivel. Also, the effects are wonderful, though they are used to fairly stoopid ends.

11th Hour has the exact opposite problem. It's a long 2 hours of talking heads, interspersed with stock footage of various environmental disasters (boy are there a lot of environmental horrors in this world right now). It's a very heady film, without a lot of emotional lift.

Of course, the best environmental film out there is The Al Gore Flick, which begs the question "Do we need another one of these, only half as good?" I think the answer is yes.

What I'd like to see is a good ecological thriller, one with three dimensional characters, emotional and intellectual logic, based on good science and worthy of a bucket of popcorn.

Dream on, right?

Blades of Glory (slight spoilers)

Last night I saw a preview showing of the new Will Farrell / Jon Heder flick Blades of Glory. I looked at trailers for this movie a month or so ago and by ghawd cringed at it. It looked like a homophobic sophomoric mess with two directors and five writers and I could not imagine that it would have anything to recommend itself to me. That should have been the end of the story. But the GF found out about this free showing sponsored by the Boston Globe and WBCN and Newbury Comics, and as I was free for the evening and was in the mood to hang out with Missy Ma'am, I kinda said, what th' hell, I'll go see a bad movie. Might be a kick just on that level.

It was kinda across town on the Brookline verge of Newton, at this beat cineplex called the Cleveland Circle Showcase Cinema, so there was the 45 minute travel time to conted with, into somewhat unfamiliar territory. I took two wrong turns, but even after the 2nd one, I was still able to orient myself. We got there in pretty good time, like 5 minutes before the show. Very young crowd. K said "we're skewing the demographic" and that was obviously so. The house was about 5/6th full -- the front five or so rows were empty, and the theater was kinda long & narrow.

So anyway, not long to wait for the movie to start, and they didn't show any previews. So we walk in, sit down and BAM!

The opening titles were actually kind of understated, a montage of beautiful, fuzzy shots of kids skating. Not what I expected at all. The whole movie is like a preteen boy's fantasy about what skating is, a total flight of fancy and so extremely over the top. It was hilarious, with a couple of outre, hammy, raucous, great performances at its center, and a truly top notch supporting cast including Craig T. Nelson, Amy Poehler, Will Arnett, Jenna Fischer, and William Fichtner.

I think no comedy stands up to analysis, and this one dares you to try and analyze it. (I will get the DVD when it comes out, so I'll figure some of it out then, I guess...) I actually found it slightly homophibic, but not nearly as much as you might expect. Note that the only "gay" character never actually comes out and is a stalker. If you are sensitive about such things this may not be the movie for you. I'm pretty easy to offend actually, but this didn't piss me off: You end up liking the gay stalker character. (yes, like much of the movie, that's so wrong!)

So, if you like your comedy burlesque and a little edgy, I think you might find this a pleasantly spent hour and a half.