Cooking and other observations

New Feature: Letters to Popular Songs

Dear "Lips of an Angel":

I regret to inform you that you are currently the most annoying song on radio. Your band, Hinter (or is it Hinder? I can't tell), has a creepy jones to be Nickleback, and that's a large part of the problem, but you'd still be stupid if a different performer tried to do something with you.

For one thing, the Angel Lips on the phone probably isn't any better than the current girlfriend in the next room. She's your ex, and maybe you never had breakup sex, but if she were still sitting on the couch with PMS watching "Stepmom" on cable clutching a tissue, she'd still be a pain. But now she's gone. She's taken that lstrawberry-flavored lipgloss with her on a trip to the land of the girls whose pants you can't get into, which makes her that much better than the girl who's in the living room, or the kitchen, or the conservatory, or whatever the next room is who glares at you for leaving the seat up.

Man, remember when you were with Angel Lips? Things were so much better back then. Maybe you should see if she'd get back together with you... or if she'd just meet you at some cheap motel on the outskirts of town. There could be a whole 'nother song about that! And then one about how Couch Girl kicked your ass...

More than likely Angel Lips just called to say she left some bath gel under your sink, and that was expensive bath gel, and could you drop it by the front desk of her workplace, because she'd like it back--but not enough to see your ugly mug to get it.

So here's my easy solution to your problems: Go take a shower and whack off, which will get your hormones in check. Then pack up whatever it is she wants, drop it off, shut up about it, and I won't tell Couch Girl that you've been thinking about cheating on her.

And don't worry too much. Panic! at the Disco's terrier of a song is nipping at your heels.

On behalf ofthe listening public,

Eyeroll

Honk If You Love Justice

It's about damned time. The Tick--the good, animated series, not the awful live-action attempt--comes to DVD in about a month's time. This set is missing "The Tick vs. The Mole Men," from what I hear, but 12 pristine Tick episodes on legitimate DVDs is better than none--12 times better.

This is the best news I've had in I don't know how long.

The Devil Wears Prada

Starring (Academy Award Winner) Meryl Streep, as the Devil. She instills fear and stuff, much like the actual devil is supposed to do, but in this movie, Streep does it with high heels and sunglasses--and an accent; don't forget the accent. (Hey, it's Meryl Streep, people. She's incapable of not doing accent. She may have forgotten where she was born by now.)

This movie is set in New York, because, as we all know, all fashion that doesn't happen in Paris or Milan (or other places mentioned in Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy") happens in New York. The streets of New York always seem to be glistening with rain in movies, but it's never really raining. Why is that?

OK, so a badly dressed girl walks into the offices of a fictional fashion magazine, which is actually Vogue. All fashion magazines are actually Vogue, you see. There's really only one. Frumpy is outstanding, but not in a good way. She's wearing a horrible beige jacket and a sweater vest. I don't know when this thing is supposed to be happening, but sweater vests, like gauchos, were never a good idea. So, like I said, it's a dead giveaway that this girl is hopeless. Her hair looks dyed, so whoever the actress is probably went brunette for the part. (And that confuses me, because most Hollywood blondes were not born that way.) In the scene we see in the trailer, somebody hid all the styling products from poor, sad Frumpy. How long do we think that's going to last? Not long if she plans to keep the job she might or might not get.

There's a rude and slightly fussy bald dude with giant glasses, and a ghoul who's wearing way too much black eye shadow and godawful shoes. See, unlike Frumpy, these folks are Fashion Types. Contrast! Frumpy talks to the Devil for a couple of sentences, the Fashion Types mouth words about her, and then?

I have no idea. That's why this trailer is so great: it gives you the setup and then it stops. Perfect. Should you see it? I don't see why not. No hint of a boyfriend, or anything like that, so unless it's a love story about a girl and her job, which would be kind of sad in a very 21st-century way.

Bottom line: If it's really hot where you live, I can guarantee that the temperature in your local movie house will be roughly 62 degrees, so take a sweater. You could probably do worse in terms of what's on the screen. I can see myself renting this, except that I don't rent movies. I wait until they're available at some place like Target for $12, which ends up being cheaper than Netflix for me. So I guess you could say that it's fairly likely that "The Devil Wears Prada" will one day gather dust on a shelf near my TV after I've watched it twice.

Three Standing Ovations at Sundance! The Al Gore Story

Apparently a film's reception at Sundance is important. Maybe it's kind of ironic, since Sundance happens in one of those ultra-conservative states that starts with a vowel, but it's really just an outpost of Hollywood, so I think the ovations are kind of a given. Nonetheless, the nice people who put the trailer together thought you should know that the Hollywood liberals liked it so much they got out of their seats three times. Truth in advertising, one supposes.

So here's the thing: I don't care about your politics--really, I don't--in fact, I'm pretty sure that your politics, like mine, are completely selfish and informed by the media at large, which often uses press releases and talking points verbatim--and I've written both of these things professionally--I know it's all lies. But you can't not admire Al Gore's comeback from the debacle that was the 2000 election. Yes, even if you're a hard core Bill O'Reilly fan who thinks Al is right next to Hillary "Not Really That Liberal" Clinton in the Speaker's Bureau of Evil, a comeback is a comeback, and Al is sitting right next to Cher in the Comeback Hall of Fame these days.

He's back; and this time, he's interesting. Who'd'a thunk it? He and this little movie called "An Inconvenient Truth" are here to tell us that we're killing the Earth.

Oops. I guess that calls for a collective "my bad."

Anyway, damned fine trailer. Al gives a speech, which is a surprisingly painless thing if you were paying attention to either Saturday Night Live or the actual campaign in 2000. He's shaved the beard, but he isn't wearing a tie, and he seems to be comfortable. Also, he seems to have most of his hair, and this is the part where all the balding guys out there call him a bastard.

His point, aside from the cool quick cuts, is that global warming is our fault, caused by the driving and the factories and stuff that produces carbon dioxide. (I always thought that carbon monoxoid was the one that could kill you, but apparently this is different.) So the snows of Kilimanjaro are melting; that's in Tanzania, which is in Africa, and I'm not sure how it melting is going to cause me here in Washington, D.C, to drown, but Al Gore things so, and he's been here a bit, so I figure he knows we're due for a comeuppance.

The best thing about this movie is that the trailer doesn't give away the answer, so you have to go see it. I'm not sure I believe that Al has a magic bullet, but he's so confident and jovial about the whole thing, I kind of hope he does.

He doesn't come out and say that we ordinary Americans are more dangerous to the planet at large than terrorists--at least he doesn't in the trailer--but he does have some neat graphics showing how Shanghai and Florida are going to disappear into their respective oceans.

Freaky, man.

Bottom Line: I'm going to go see this, because Al Gore being cool is enough of a spectacle that I can't possibly resist. I guarantee that if he were PotUS, Al Gore would not be cool, not even lukewarm. So in that respect, the whole 2000 thing is the best thing that ever happened to him, even if it's the worst thing that ever happened to the free world.

I'm exaggerating, of course. No need to school me on things that are worse.

Friends with Money

I saw a ticket stub from this movie tucked in between bags of "Cranberry Circle" cookies at work the other day. Maybe somebody was trying to, you know, hide the evidence. It said "Friends With M." I don't know what that means. Friends with M&Ms? Good to have, I guess. Friends with Mangos? Get a life. Friends with Mojo Nixon? I'm two hundred percent jealous.

FWM is Jennifer Anniston's latest project! You know it's gonna be crappy, despite the presence of (Academy Award Winner) Frances McDormand. What the hell is she doing in a movie with Jennifer Anniston, anyway?

OK, so, Jennifer is poor, but she has a lot of rich friends. Here's the catch: Little Jen has a real job working as a maid, but she's marginally happier and a lot better looking than her rich friends. From the trailer, I can't tell where these women are supposed to have met, or why they know each other. Maybe Jen cleaned somebody's house, and they all decided that being friends with the maid would be a nice community service project.

Whatever. That's the movie.

I'm completely serious. I mean, I guess it's about why these women are friends with each other, but who can really tell? Because Jennifer Anniston is in it, and that's all you need to know. It could be deep and meaningful, I suppose... but I'm thinking it's not. I'm thinking this is just another chick flick designed to part women from their money. Probably not as maudlin as "Stepmom" or as stupid as "First Wives' Club."

(Well, all right, I haven't seen First Wives' Club, but Stepmom scarred me for life, even though I was messed up on pain killers when I watched it on TV. But the idea of FWC made me want to put out my own eyes, Oedipus style.)

Bottom Line: In the name of all that's holy, don't.

This made me laugh

She became an overnight MTV sensation in 2003 as co-star of a reality show chronicling her first year of wedlock with fellow pop vocalist Nick Lachey, but she filed for divorce in December after three stormy years of marriage. Simpson is currently featured wearing cowboy boots and hot pants in a TV pizza ad.

That's Simpson, as in Jessica Simpson. The text is from a wire service account of her failure to appear at a Republican party fundraiser, reportedly because the organization she's promoting is nonpartisan. (That's true; Operation Smile is an international group that provides reconstructive surgery to children with facial deformities. Its work is about as nonpartisan as you can get.) The GOP response? "It was never a problem for Bono."

I'm just not sure what to say to that. How many times does a starlet known for being big-titted and not very smart seem to have more sense than a bunch of Washington types. And Bono.

Don't get me wrong; my iTunes scorecard reads U2 Lots, Jessica 0, but Bono is >< this close to being just another Washington type, just with better clothes. You can't rub elbows without getting some on you, is all I'm saying.

Good move, Jessica.

Failure to Launch

So, I watched this trailer at the WaPo because it's my hometown paper, and I may as well use some of their services, right? Anyway, I was super-confused by the scene that greeted me: a couple of guys in suits who had blue lizard heads, sitting in an office cubicle talking about... something. Because this was supposed to be a movie about, um, not blue lizard guys in suits.

Turns out that it was an ad for Microsoft Office; I think I'm going to take my clueless little self back to iTunes, where I kind of know what's going on.

Anyway, Failure to Launch seems like a ripoff of The Wedding Planner, which I also didn't see. However, in this movie, Jennifer Lopez is played by Sarah Jessica Parker with shaggy blond hair and righteous boring clothes. The guy is still Matthew McCon... however you spell his last name. I can't remember. I think he was in The Wedding Planner, so he probably didn't have to learn too many new lines for this project.

The premise is pretty simple. Matthew is a lazy guy who can't seem to move out of his parents' house. It looks like the same house from Father of the Bride, which I did see under duress. It's possible that the house exists on some studio backlot, and managed not to get itself torched in Gone with the Wind.

Do studios even have backlots any more? I have no idea.

OK, so the 'rents want their freeloading son out of the house, so they hire Sarah to do it. Surprisingly, her role is not a mover, but a motivator, which seems kind of passive-aggressive to me. They could have rented Matt a U-Haul and thrown his stuff out on the lawn. Sarah's technique is to fake a romantic relationship and... something. It's supposed to work. I'm not sure how the parents found this creature. Yellow Pages? Probably not. I'll bet she has a web site, or maybe a 900 number and an infomercial. Perhaps Mom saw her on Dr. Phil.

Predictibly, Sarah actually kind of likes Matthew and says that there's nothing really wrong with him even though he's supposed to be a 30-year-old-probably-employed-guy living with his parents.

This movie is going to blow shingles off your roof, and I don't mean that in a good way. Failure to Launch is just another stupid "romantic" "comedy" with a seriously bad trailer. I guess it's possible that it's a great movie, but the trailer doesn't exactly hint at greatness.

Bottom Line: Unless you have a thing for Matthew McWhatshisname shirtless, there is no reason to fork over your $10 for Failure to Launch. If you happen to notice it on cable, you can probably watch something else, or microwave some popcorn and grab your drool rag.

Crash

I was about a minute into the trailer before I realized that this isn't a movie about aliens coming to earth. Not sure what that says, really. The slides about Us All Coming Together against starry looking black backgrounds lend a spacey feel, but those slides are nothing more than subterfuge, trying to lure unsuspecting sci-fi fans into an introspective movie about humans in Los Angeles.

Anyway, I saw Crash about ten years ago when it starred James Spader and Patricia Arquette in a story about people who like to have sex at the scenes of automobile accidents directed by David Cronenberg.

I kid you not.

Anyway, this is not that movie. It's not even a remake of that movie, which is an enormous relief to me. I think we all dodged a bullet there.

So, this thing looks pretty good, despite the weird cast. Seriously, a movie starring Sandra Bullock, Ryan Phillipe and rapper Ludacris seems to deserve its best picture nom? Who are we kidding here?

My guess is that Don Cheadle, who plays a guy in a suit, pulls the whole thing together, because he's a very talented guy who probably ought to have won last year's best actor award for "Hotel Rwanda," which is on sale at Target, in case you're interested.

OK, the plot. Well... Sandra Bullock is having a panic attack that makes her talk a lot. Nice dye job, though, and she still looks good in a tank top. Got to give her trainer props. Matt Dillon is.... a cop? Maybe? Nice Suit Don Cheadle's brother carjacks Sandra Bullock, so she gets a big hug from husband Brendan Frasier, who seems pretty much bewildered by the whole thing.

And there's a little girl. Does every movie have a cute little girl now? Did I miss an edict?

Don's mom is in the hospital, and she wants him to go out and find the errant brother. He stands around thinking about it, and about how very surface-oriented Los Angeles is. I guess he's new in town.

There's a car on fire, and a lot of hugging.

I'm not sure what this movie is about, but I'm thinking it might win. Not that I've seen it; I'm just guessing.

Bottom line: This one might actually be worth ten bucks.

Munich: It's Not Just a City in Germany Anymore!

It's not that I care that much, but as the only movie trailer reviewer that I personally know of, I feel a certain responsibility to review most of the Oscar nominated movies for 2005. Not that I saw most of them; remember people, I didn't. Even most potential award winners aren't worth ten bucks to me when I can probably catch them on HBO for free one of these days. I'm kind of cheap that way, plus, I can't exactly go to the local multiplex in my bathrobe. (OK, I could. I have some pretty spiffy bathrobes, but that's beside the point. I'd at least have to wear shoes.)

Now that we've got that out of the way, remember when Steven Spielberg didn't take himself so damned seriously? Me neither. I have no clue what this movie is about. It's all very intense, which should be obvious from the black card that reads "A Steven Spielberg Film" near the beginning.

Despite the title, and the ghostly presence of Jim "The Agony of Defeat" McKay, this movie is actually about a hired killer. I'm pretty sure you won't be leaving the movie house convinced that you should put on a track suit and go for the gold--Chariots of Fire this ain't. Unless they award a gold medal for blowing shit up real good, which they don't. So never mind that.

There's an old woman, who may or may not be Golda Meir, and she talks a young-ish, vaguely hunky in a 1970s way family man into hunting down and killing the alleged perps. Her eyebrows look like giant black caterpillers, and the guy can't say no. Can't say that I blame him, the eyebrows scared me, too.

So, he kills. And then he says it's "strange to think of yourself as an assassin." Well, yeah. I'd think that the proper time to consider that little detail is before you get into that line of work. How'd he get the job, anyway?

Assassin Guy kills a lot of people, and then Israel, now represented by a deep male voice, wants him to kill even more people. There's a bit with a little French girl, who may or may not meet her end in little bitty pieces. It's very poigniant and all, and the music swells so you know just exactly how poigniant.

My guess, honestly, is that the voting members of The Academy stopped paying attention after that black card, figured it would be a serious film, and nominated it on the idea alone. Also, they may have thought, as I did, that Ed Harris is part of the cast. Apparently he's not. The pale-eyed dude in this movie has hair. My bad. Sorry, Ed.

Bottom line: this one looks like a major downer. I don't mean that it looks depressing, I mean that it looks like it would give me a headache trying to figure out what's going on, and then trying to rationalize the concept of fanatic, murderous Israeli nationalism. I'll be skipping this.

Trailer Review: Brokeback Mountain, or That Gay Cowboy Movie

As per usual, I haven't seen it, but I have seen the trailer!

OK, so. Wyoming, or Montana, or some other state in which "cowboy" is an actual job, is very pretty. Of course it's pretty; this is an Ang Lee movie, as in, from the Academy Award Winning Director of (Some Other Movie.)

Ang Lee movies are always pretty. Watch one, they're very watchable.

This one is based on a short story by a writer whose work I don't love, and the screenplay was done by a novelist whose work I don't like at all. This isn't looking good so far. My hope is that Brokeback Mountain turns out to be better than The Legend of Brad Pitt, a movie which starred the state of Montana, and was something like eight hours long.

There are two cowboys, and there are sheep, and it's all very picturesque. One wears a white-ish hat, the other wears a black hat. (One of the cowboys, not the sheep.) Black Hat doesn't seem like the bad guy, so there goes that bit of obvious symbolism. They become cowboy friends, which we know because beer is consumed together, somehow--and I'm really not sure about this--this leads to becoming cowboy lovers.

And then all of a sudden, they seem to have wives and families. Huh?

Let's back up here for a minute. This movie is supposed to be set in the early 1960s, but since Cowboy is a look that hasn't exactly changed in the last 100 years, we're supposed to guess that. It could have been set last week, or in 1930, except that it would be dustier if it were 1930, and one of the guys would be Henry Fonda. You wouldn't get the time frame from the trailer.

Actually, Black Hat looks a little like Henry Fonda. The other guy has amazing dimples. I actually know who he is, which is impressive, since I don't know many of Today's Modern Movie Stars. (Maybe I should read Entertainment Weekly for a clue, you think?)

So, OK, Whitish Hat gets knocked to the ground and bangs up his pretty, dimpled face. Naturally, Black Hat has to examine the banged up face, and if you've ever read a romance novel, you know what happens next. He spends the much of rest of the trailer clinging to Black Hat Not Henry Fonda, who is all eyebrows and blue shirt. Later, somebody describes Black Hat as "a fishing buddy."

Is that what they were calling it in the 60s?

Now, Whiteish Hat (who is called "Heath Ledger" in real life and various magazine articles) hugs a blue shirt on a hanger. I'm guessing this is an homage to American Beauty, which I did see. It made me cry. So I have to think that Black Hat dies. Hollywood has done this to me: one character hugs a shirt, which means that another character is dead.

At some point, Wife of Whitish Hat puts all the pieces together, because it's not like her husband even owns a pair of waders, and everything kind of goes to hell. OK, not really, it just seems kind of sad, like a Morrissey song.

The people I know who have seen this movie loved it. There's a ton of Oscar buzz surrounding it, so we should probably all see it, just so we don't look like we're completely out of the loop.

Bottom Line: At the end of the trailer, I had this sort of "aww" feeling, like I wouldn't see it if it were an obvious chick flick, but I kind of suspect that it's a chick flick with cowboys, which is weird enough that I'll go see it one of these days.