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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 th...

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...