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My first name is Lou. (Louis if I'm being formal, but let's not get started on Louis/Luis. I live in Southern California… just how often do you think they get my East Coast Italian first name spelled right on the first try?) I've always had to deal with people getting my name wrong. My last name, which is about as phonetic as it gets, gave grade school teachers horrors and it wasn't till I got to UCI that I had instructors that breezed through it. I always figured that was because of the high Asian population at UCI. Compared to those names, my last name was a breeze. Telemarketers are another pain, with rampant mispronunciation that runs the gamut from understandable to unforgivable. Of course, it makes it easy for me when they ask for Mr. Espinoza, since he really doesn't live here. But really… if you're trying to sell me something, don't you at least TRY to get the name right? My latest pet peeve, however, is the coffee bar/sandwich place "what'

So with much fanfare and hype, the James Bond series rebooted itself once again this past weekend, and all was good again in the world of Bond. Reviews were great, Daniel Craig seems to have stepped up and done a more than credible job as the new Bond, and the series has a "grittier, more realistic" feel. Doesn't sound bad. But then, we've heard that all before, right? Anyone else remember Timothy Dalton saying he was trying to bring the character "back to it's roots" and make him more real? And we all know how those Bond films fared. (I don't know what Bond he was channeling, but the 'heart on his sleeve' Bond that he brought to the screen was one of the more boring excursions of the series.) By no means coincidentally, I'm sure, Spike TV started its apparently annual Bond marathon this week, and I managed to catch the last of the Brosnan Bond films, Die Another Day . By no means the worst of Brosnan's Bond films (that "honor&qu

I have to admit it was pretty giddy around here yesterday, at least among those voting Democrat. A veritable "ding dong the Witch is dead" feeling surfaced when we heard Rumsfeld had resigned. It felt like the ending of The Return of the Jedi , complete with cloying ewoks prancing around. And yes, I DO mean the annoying version. There's a reason for that. Frankly, I'm not surprised by the reaction. This is the first "Election Results" day since the 90's that I haven't greeted with a mixture of horror and contempt. And it's not like some of the giddiness isn't justified, I think. After all, Democrats needed about 16 seats in the House to take control, they got 33. Prior to the election, the Senate was questionable at best, but by the end of the day, we'd taken the Senate back as well. Democrats won a sizable number of Governorships. The day was being hailed as a repudiation of "Stay the Course" and the end of the Neo-Con revolut

OK, it's not that I'm mocking the idea of recruiting for the CIA . Good intelligence is exactly what we need to minimize the threat of terrorism (not to mention what a little dose of decent intelligence could do for Washington). But I'm kind of amused by the latest ad campaign I've seen on TV and heard (incessantly) on the radio lately. Are we sure Joe Shmoe listening to KROQ is really the "exceptional person with a strong sense of patriotism" the CIA is looking for? I honestly think I was more comfortable with the thought of CIA spooks skulking around college campuses and hand-picking their recruits. At least there's a sense that there's some process involved here. Not just "throw open the doors… we'll see what sticks!" And let's face it… there's gotta be some sense of irony in the thought of the National Clandestine Service advertising for spies.

Yesterday, while waiting for Flushed Away to begin, we saw a trailer for the upcoming Christmas film, The Nativity . I'll wait for the reviews on this one before deciding whether I'm going to see it, but I had to laugh at the trailer. (Head over to the videos link from the above link to check out the theatrical trailer.) We get the requisite brief glimpses of scenes from the movie, followed by scrolling text and that oh-so-dramatic Mr. Moviephone voice-over, intoning "A message foretold in the heavens… a prophecy that would threaten an empire." Now, there's no denying the truth to that statement… Christianity ultimately did shake Rome to it's core. But it's the sensational treatment of this that had me laughing. All we needed was the listing of Academy Award® nominated actors playing Joseph, Mary and Pilate to complete the feeling of "big… Hollywood… blockbuster!", a seemingly inappropriate approach to a story such as this one, I would think. (A

Last week, the Pres said that his administration would no longer refer to our policy in Iraq as "stay the course" (or words to that effect). He then went on to point out that HE had NEVER referred to our policy in such a way, and my first thought to that was 'what are you, 2?'. This got me thinking that I might be onto something. (In a rare moment of public disagreement, VP Cheney went on record the following day, saying that the government may no longer refer to our Iraq policy as "staying the course" but that is indeed the policy. Looks like the Pres got off-script in his previous statement. I assume he was chastised accordingly.) Bush has been mocked for his apparent lack of intellectual prowess, almost from day one of his campaign… a mockery that I have been happy to embrace, if for no other reason than that I find it amusing. But, realistically speaking, for all his touting of his "C" average at Yale, he can't really be as stupid as has b

So, on paper at least, the fall's been good for crime-themed movies… Hollywoodland, The Black Dahlia, The Departed… you'd think they were making cheap horror/splatter films, the way they're cranking them out. Of course, just because we had a rush on crime fiction, doesn't mean they're all any good. Hollywoodland I've already covered, so no sense going into it again here. But a week after Hollywoodland came The Black Dahlia , so I might as well start there. I really wanted to like Dahlia. Based on a James Ellroy book, directed by Brian DePalma, starring Aaron Eckhart and Scarlett Johansson (and, oh yeah, Josh Harnett), what's not to like? It's got that LA Confidential vibe, with a director that knows the genre and a great cast… and let's not forget that very cool poster ! (Of course, then I realized that the poster was a knock-off of Six Feet Under's first season cover, and it lost some of its glamour.) Sadly, the results simply didn't live

I know I asked for more like this a couple of weeks ago… Looks like Keith's ready to step up and give it to me. 'Beginning of the end of America' I never knew I was a Keith Olberman fan (and, frankly, doubt this is going to make me check out his column on a regular basis). But we certainly agree on this particular point. (I can't help but point out that I've had the Ben Franklin quote he mentions on page 2 as an email signature since shortly after 9/11, when it became obvious that Mr. Bush and company weren't particularly concerned with notions like the Constitution, liberty and responsibility.) I guess one can take some comfort from the examples that Olberman mentions—Adams, Wilson and Roosevelt—and the thought that the country survived those threats. But it's still a sad day to see this kind of legislation proposed, let alone passed and signed into law. (Let me get this straight… Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about a blow-job. George Bush shreds th

So I'm bit disturbed by the reappearance of post-apocalyptic themes in pop-culture this year. There was a brief, shining moment between the fall of the Berlin wall & collapse of the Soviet Union and today, where all those nuclear nightmares I'd developed after years of gloom and doom SF in the 70's were just bad memories. Now, thanks to global terrorism, the lunacy of N. Korea's "Dear Leader" and an administration that can't even pronounce nuclear, let alone reassure me that they're on top of the issue, it seems those old bad thoughts are making a comeback. Heroes on NBC has a scattered group of people discovering that they have super-human abilities and will have to work together to avert the disaster that one of them is able to foresee. So far, I'm enjoying the hell out of this one. Interesting characters with cool powers and the overriding mystery of who's going to blow up New York and why… there are enough interesting twists to keep me

So weeks of hype (I'm pretty sure I read a quote somewhere calling this the best new sitcom of the season) culminated in Wednesday's premier episode of 30 Rock , and, as my title implies, all I've gotta say is "what the fuck?" THIS is "the best" of the new? I guess I fell for the hype, 'cause I went into it really looking forward to the show. I've already decided I can't get enough of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (god help me if the audience numbers don't pick up) and figured getting the satirical sit-com angle on the sketch comedy genre could be a lot of fun. I don't think I could be more wrong. I was nonplussed from the very start, with an absurd argument over hot dogs and a Mary Tyler Moore'ish opening number (obviously meant to be winkingly satirical), leading to the discovery that Tina Fey's character is the head writer on a late night sketch comedy show called, ironically (?) The Girlie Show. I know they make jokes abo

Sunday, lately, seems to be my day to revisit movies I've seen recently, but never actually talked about. Last week was Batman Begins , this week Legend of Zorro . One good, one not so much. Let's start with the good… Batman Begins, of course. First off, there's the film's pedigree. Christopher Nolan directs (Memento, Insomnia). David Goyer wrote the screenplay (Dark City, the Blade series). And the cast: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, I could go on, but there's really only one disappointment in that cast, so let's cut to the chase. Despite the overwhelming quality of the cast, somehow we got stuck with Katie Holmes as the romantic interest/foil for Batman, and you gotta wonder how that decision was reached. (Well, actually, you probably don't. Some genius at Warner Bros. gave Nolan a list of "hot young actresses" and told him to pick one for the Rachel Dawes role and Katie somehow ended up at the top of the list.) Sa

And then there's Zorro. I really liked the first movie in this series, The Mask of Zorro . It had some great swashbuckling moments and some really fun swordfights. It probably doesn't bear up to much critical analysis, but it was a fun ride. My first glimmerings that there might be a problem came with the announcement of the story for the sequel, The Legend of Zorro . (A sequel nearly a decade in the making, by the way). Apparently they decided that the one thing missing from the great relationship between Zorro and Elena and his role as protector of California… was an annoying child to muck up the works. (Don't get me started on this trend again. I ranted enough the first time around .) Funny thing is, the child turned out to be the least annoying thing they did with the movie. I don't know what they were thinking, but between a patently formulaic approach to the sequel (a MOTS—More Of The Same—sequel, if there ever was one), shoehorning contemporary politics into the

I love Looney Tunes, with their puns, in-jokes and pop-culture references of the era. (Especially the puns, as anyone who really knows me can attest.) So I'm amused to learn just where Foghorn Leghorn must have come from... That's a Joke, Son That's only an aside to the main point of the article… an amusing intro to the topic under discussion, as it were. I'm not really concerned with the article itself today. I just thought the Claghorn/Leghorn thing was amusing.

Seriously. Read this. Keith Olbermann | A Special Comment About Lying We need to hear more like this, please.

"We've been working as hard as we know how to work - everyone in youth ministry is working hard - but we're losing." Ron Luce , an evangelical activist on fears of a steep decline in the number of young churchgoers. Evangelicals Fear the Loss of Their Teenagers - New York Times Maybe if there are fewer teens getting indoctrinated by ultraconservative evangelicals , we'll get a little more common sense in future generations. I can dream, can't I?  

The news that Representative Mark Foley has been exchanging sexually explicit instant messages with his underage pages (and that, apparently, the pages have been telling each other for years to watch out for him); the news that the Speaker of the House and (presumably) Republican leadership have been aware of this for years and done nothing about it; or the contemptible press release Foley's lawyer issued earlier this week, stating that, not only was Foley abused as a child, but it was at the hands of a Catholic priest. (What, did they sit around with the Mad Libs deck and try to figure out the best combination of traits to lay claim to?) I know it's an obvious joke, but seriously… at this point, when you look up corrupt in the dicttionay, they might as well just redirect you to Republican .

Early this morning, KROQ played a clip of Bush, campaigning here in California, urging people to pay attention to how members of Congress voted on The Military Commissions Act (you know, the one that says it's okay to use torture and to ignore the Geneva Convention), Cheney's domestic spying bill and other "anti-terrorism" legislation recently acted on in Congress, in preparation for going to the polls in November. He suggests that you pay attention to how your Senators and Representatives voted, and which party they belong to, and vote accordingly. And frankly, as I said, I think he's got it half right. You absolutely should pay attention to how your senators and reps voted on bills like this. And then, no matter which freaking party they belong to, vote the motherfuckers out. The Constitution may not be a "suicide pact" as the President's Press Secretary famously stated shortly after 9/11, but neither is it the nuisance that his administration see

So a few weeks ago, I stumbled across this title at the local Borders bookstore: Star Wars on Trial: Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Debate the Most Popular Science Fiction Films of All Time After months of listening to the rabid S.O.A.P. fans rattle on about their movie (no comment on how that translated to actual success of said movie) I have to acknowledge the power of a really cheesy title. And this one ranks right up there, I think. I've got to admit I picked this one up and set it down several times, over several trips to the bookstore. But eventually I succumbed to the lure of topics like "The Politics of Star Wars are Anti-Democratic and Elitist" and "Women in Star Wars are Portrayed as Fundamentally Weak." Then I read David Brin's intro. And Matthew Woodring Stover's intro. And I realized that, despite the extended conceit of putting the Star Wars saga on trial (complete with a droid judge to oversee the proceedings), there was some serio

The gist of it is, this really was the point I was trying to make here (read the comments). Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Fuels Terror It just carries a bit more weight when it's coming from the people who really know what's going on there. (Meanwhile, of course, Pollyanna is in full denial mode . Of course, the point isn't that Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism existed before 9/11. It's that what's going on in Iraq today is making it worse. And no amount of Bill Clinton blamestorming is going to change that unpleasant fact.)  

Channel surfing tonight I came across Spielberg's War of the Worlds just in time for the scene that ruined the movie for me. Understand that, overall, I think they did a really nice job of updating the story, making it contemporary and relevant without losing any of the major beats of Well's original . The aliens and their machines evoke Well's story while not feeling out of place in our era, the human drama is foremost and, as it's told exclusively from Ray's (Tom Cruise's character's) point of view, immediate and often chilling. But I just can't get past the set-up to this great big bug-eyed monster from outer space extravaganza. The aliens are first revealed as one of their war machines corkscrews out of the earth, underneath a main intersection in Ray's neighborhood. He watches, stunned, as the ground begins to rotate, shearing off the fronts of buildings and collapsing structures as the ground falls into the center of the hole that's being

The first thing that strikes me about these two movies was how the 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was really all about Charlie, while last year's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was really all about Willy. (Just look at the character arcs in both movies… who really changes the most in each? You'll see what I mean.) The next thing I realized is how amazingly "safe" this new version of Roald Dahl's story is. And the last thing that occurred to me as I saw Charlie this afternoon was that I really dislike this remake. In 1971's Willy Wonka, Gene Wilder's Willy seems a bit of a cynic, is untrusting and suffers from feelings of superiority to the rest of the world. He's also vaguely threatening, or at the very least, apparently uncaring as to the well-being of these annoying people he's subjected himself to. For the majority of the movie, he's simply not a very nice guy. Meanwhile, Charlie is a quiet child, but obviously on the advent

Noir is in, right now, judging from this and this week's Black Dahlia . Sadly, that may be an unfortunate thing. (And yes, if you haven't seen it yet, consider yourself warned… I'll probably talk about the ending. That makes this the only SPOILER ALERT you're going to get.) Hollywoodland is one of those movies that I look at and think "the whole was definitely less than the sum of its parts." It's got a great cast with Adrian Brody, Diane Lane and Bob Hoskins taking their respective noirish roles of noble PI, dangerous monied dame and older, mob-type husband. And Ben Affleck really steps up this time as the "victim" in this sad little tale. On the heels of my " kiss of death " post last week came the news that he'd received the Venice Film Festival Best Actor award. And I think it's a well-deserved award. This may be the most interesting and was certainly the most believable performance I've seen from Affleck. (I found on

A while ago, I bemoaned the loss of my art-house pretensions. I'd been to several movies on the art-house circuit that I just didn't get or was simply unimpressed by and realized that my tastes were probably more mainstream than I liked to pretend. (The first two that come to mind are Ghost World and The Station Agent , but I'm sure there are others.) But in recent weeks, I've caught a few movies that were firmly stuck in the art-houses this year that I've really enjoyed. (Now, some of this may have to do with where I'm living these days. Downey is not exactly a hot-bed for cutting edge movies, and anything outside of the all important weekly top-10 box office reports is likely to entail schlepping to Hollywood, Santa Monica or Pasadena, but some of these I'm SURE never got outside the art-house circuit.) The first of these was, arguably, the least art-house of the bunch. But I never got a chance to see it in the theatres and it's Woody Allen, so while

I saw countless previews articles on Hollywoodland that talked about Affleck playing Superman (George Reeves, actually, but they apparently loved that angle). But it's opening tomorrow, and he's conspicuously absent from all the media… no mention or screen time in the TV spots, no mention in the radio spots (even though they do play a brief clip of him in those), and they've even redesigned the posters from the first one I saw to move his pic into the background. I understand that, with the whole Hollywood noir approach to the story, his role might be a relatively minor one. Let's face it… he's gonna die off early in the film, so he'll probably be seen more in flashbacks than anything else. But it's still gotta suck to have a major role in this film, BEEN a marquee name for years and find yourself not even getting mentioned in any of the ads. I've never been a huge Affleck fan (and I'm beginning to wonder who, outside of Kevin Smith, ever really was

"And speaking of…" seems to be a theme for the week. But when the President's doing his impersonation of the Iraqi Defense Minister (you remember, the guy denying the whole invasion of Iraq, while American tanks were rolling into Baghdad), how can I resist? From his weekly radio address , after the Pentagon released their latest comprehensive assessment of security in Iraq, comes this gem: "Our commanders and diplomats on the ground believe that Iraq has not descended into a civil war. They report that only a small number of Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, while the overwhelming majority want peace and a normal life in a unified country." I have no doubt the overwhelming majority of Iraqis want peace and a normal life. Don't the majority of people everywhere want peace and a normal life? It's governments and the people that want to overthrow them that are planning and prepping and executing the violence. Jesus, what meaningless pap.

Rumsfeld Likens Iraq War Opponents to Those Who Appeased Hitler I've got ample amounts of contempt for the Bush administration to go around, but there seems to be just that little bit extra reserved for this son of a bitch. I think it's his combination of willful arrogance combined with apparent incompetence. While I'm sure that there are things that have happened in Iraq that no one could have expected, I'm thinking that the blissful ignorance expressed prior to our invasion might have more than a little to do with the difficulties we're facing right now. ("The Iraqi people will greet us with flowers in one hand, waving American flags in the other" was one moronic statement I heard expressed in the ramp-up to war.) But I'm not really interested in debating policy here. I hate the fact that we went to war in Iraq, I hate the fact that we trampled international law with the flimsy notion of "preventive war" and I despise the loss of life on bo

Paris Hilton Day in Las Vegas ? Kevin Federline on CSI & Entourage ? What the hell is up with these no talent clowns, famous for nothing more than being famous, getting fawned upon and adulated over? How the hell is Federline getting acting jobs (even typecast as a deadbeat celebrity husband)?!? And Paris Hilton, whose most well-received performance so far has been the One Night in Paris sex video? Obviously no one in Hollywood is making creative decisions anymore… must all be based on Performer Q ratings. Of course, that doesn't explain how the hell these hacks have such high ratings, but at least it (almost) explains how they're getting this attention.

Yeah, we saw Snakes on a Plane last week. Dani dragged me nearly kicking and screaming to the theatre for this one. I think she summed it up best when she said "it was everything she expected!" Of course, she meant it in a complimentary fashion, but what I heard was "it really lives up to your expectations," which in my case was more like living down to your expectations. Let's face it, it's a dumb movie, with an annoyingly dumb concept. I mean, what the hell… let's sneak a bunch of killer snakes on a plane so that it'll crash and kill the government's only witness? Talk about high-concept (and low thought process). And the single justification for this bizarre attempt at mass murder is the throw-away "I've tried everything else" comment from the evil boss man. Yeah, right. But NO ONE's going to this thing for logical plot development (or, hell, plot itself). They're going to see Samuel L. Jackson kick some motherfucking sn

I've been hearing trailers for this one all week… Crank : A hit man learns that a poison injected into his body will kill him if his heart rate drops slows a certain point. Now he must exact his revenge on the people who injected him before he takes his last breath. (I just discovered this is one of the big movies opening this weekend. Wow, talk about summer going out with a whimper.) But what really amuses me is how much this sounds like this movie (and it's various incarnations): D.O.A. 1950 version (D.O.A.) with Edmond O'Brien and Pamela Britton: Small-town accountant Frank Bigelow goes to San Francisco for a week's fun prior to settling down with fiancée Paula. After a night on the town, he wakes up with more than just a hangover; doctors tell him he's been given a "luminous toxin" with no antidote and has, at most, a week to live! Not knowing who did it or why, Bigelow embarks on a frantic odyssey to find his own murderer. 1969 version (Color Me D

I don't fly much. It's not that I've got any problems flying, it's just that I don't have much reason to fly. Most of our vacations have been driving trips (Dani loves to road trip) and I seldom have to fly for work. But Dani's mom moved to Seattle earlier this year, so I knew more flying was definitely in my future. Just my luck, then, that the first flight I take in over two years comes just a couple of weeks after the latest terror plot is revealed and airline security gets ratcheted up to "orange". I'm only going up to Seattle for the weekend to house/dog sit which, under any other circumstances would mean shove a pair of jeans, a couple of shirts and changes of underwear in a carry-on, grab a couple of books to keep me busy and I'm on my way. But, since we can't carry on anything that is, in any way/shape/form liquid, I decide "to hell with it" and pack a bag to check. Better that, I think, than to have to worry about buying

So our good old boy "Leader of the Free World", according to the " Washington Whispers " in this week's US News & World Report, loves a "good" fart joke (I parenthesize, since I dispute the notion that there's any such thing as a good fart joke). He loves to cuss, gets a jolly when a mountain biker wipes out trying to keep up with him, and now we're learning that the first frat boy loves flatulence jokes. A top insider let that slip when explaining why President Bush is paranoid around women, always worried about his behavior. But he's still a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides, but forget about getting people to gas about that. I can just see it… sitting around with the Joint Chiefs, the room's a little tense, so he leans over to Cheney and whispers "Shotgun, pull my finger!" Yep, that's our Presi

Somehow I'm not surprised that the guy who's become infamous for his Lindssay Lohan "Firecrotch" comments is part of the family that owns the Pink Taco restaurant chain. "Firecrotch" Stadium? - TMZ.com Seriously, can you imagine the promos for Arizona Cardinals at Pink Taco Stadium? I'm loving it already.

Good news for those of us who think the Constitution IS actually more than an interesting historical document. NSA eavesdropping program ruled unconstitutional - Aug 17, 2006 And it's not simply "Hey, this is a bad program!" It's a 44-page memorandum that says, among other things: …the program "violates the separation of powers doctrine, the Administrative Procedures Act, the First and Fourth amendments to the United States Constitution, the FISA and Title III." AND …that "the president of the United States ... has undisputedly violated the Fourth in failing to procure judicial orders." No surprise that the "Developing Story" banner above this article says the Justice Department will appeal. Not to sound like one of those nut-job reactionaries we all mock, but when do we get to start calling it the InJustice Department? Just asking, you know.  

The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself. —Archibald MacLeish, poet and librarian (1892-1982) From today's A.Word.A.Day email: haruspicy

There's an interesting bit of synchronicity in this week's movie ad campaigns. Oliver Stone's World Trade Center radio spots talk about "certain moments that define a generation." Pretty hard to argue with that claim… if there's anything in recent history that could be considered generation defining, the 9/11 attacks would certainly qualify. And, from what I've seen of the reviews, it looks like Stone's movie lives up to that "defining moment". Over on the other end of the multiplex, thematically speaking, is Step Up . The ads for this one lead off with this little gem: "Once every ten years a movie comes along that captures the voice of a generation." If I may… Tyler Gage is a rebel from the wrong side of Baltimore's tracks ­ and the only thing that stands between him and an unfulfilled life are his dreams of one day making it out of there. Nora is a privileged ballet dancer attending Baltimore's ultra-elite Maryland Schoo

I often wish that I had Dani's ability to just tune out commercials. I'll mention which ever one is bugging me lately, and she'll just look at me like I've lost my mind, then shrug and tell me she hasn't heard it. Along with the movie spots that are making my head spin, there's the ultra-annoying Ikea "stream of consciousness" ads that are in heavy rotation lately. An apparently typical vacuous Ikea shopper gets her latest Ikea catalog and we're treated to 60 seconds of her inane stream-of-consciousness ramblings, inspired by all the wonderful things she sees in the catalog. Makes you wonder what kind of target demographic Ikea is shooting for, 'cause god knows there's no way I want to be associated with that kind of vapid mental meandering. In a way, it kind of reminds me of a recent HBO campaign. In it, zombified HBO viewers treat their friends and relatives with disdain and contempt if they dare to utter a sound while our zombie spokespe