Archive for July, 2008

Is he in the kitchen?

Is he at the beach?

Is he on the Straight Talk Express?

Maybe he’s at a town hall meeting, saying “my friends” two to three times per sentence. Is that where he is? No?

Is he with the troops?

If he isn’t with the troops, why not? Does he, or anyone for that matter, have an excuse for not being with the troops right now? Who the hell does he think he is? Just what are his priorities? Would he be willing to lose the war in order to win an election? Maybe he’d rather eat a pulled pork sandwich than spend time with the troops. Perhaps he thinks that getting an hour or two of sleep each night is time better spent than time spent with the troops. What’s more important: calling Cindy Lou a hussy for wearing too much makeup, or spending time with the troops? Think of the time he’s spent over the years brushing his teeth, or wiping his ass after taking a crap. That’s time that could have been spent with the troops. But it seems he had other, more important things to do.

I think he may be a Communist. What else would explain this obvious disdain he has for the troops?

You all remember this lovely metaphor for America’s relationship with our close ally, Germany, during the Bush administration:

It looks like, should all go according to plan, things are going to be different in the future. According to Reuters, Angela Merkel was asked yesterday, before she’d met Barack Obama, what she thought of him.

Merkel responded: “I would say that he is well-equipped — physically, mentally and politically.”

Physically? Um… OK.

She was further asked, in reference to the image above, whether she expected more massages from the next American president.

“That’s not really up to me,” she joked. “But I wouldn’t resist.”

Heh. Just what are we supposed to make of that? I’m hoping she’s just toying with the media’s preoccupation with personality and celebrity rather than real political issues. I really, really hope that’s it, because I’d hate to think Merkel’s thinking of relations with a US president who’s… hot. Because when I think of that, I feel like this:

Ein Tipp der Hut to Blue Gal.

Oh, that Billy Mays. What can you say about a fella like Billy Mays?

Billy Mays knows how to say “power,” and Billy Mays knows how to say “full,” but ironically, Billy Mays can’t seem to say “powerful” without it sounding like “parful.” And wouldn’t you know it, many of the products promoted by Billy Mays are powerful, so he has no choice but to keep trying to get that darned word right. Poor old long-suffering Billy Mays.

Billy Mays works in the wonderful world of the eye of hell, but happy, innocent guy that he is, Billy Mays doesn’t understand that that thing they clip to his shirt is a microphone, and that they can control the level of his voice. Instead, Billy Mays screams at the top of his lungs about his various and sundry “parful” products. That silly Billy Mays.

For more about Billy Mays, be sure to check out Billy Mays Mayhem, which features a collection of the sounds of Billy Mays! Sadly, the collection doesn’t include Billy Mays saying “parful.” You’ll just have to take my word for it on that one.

Dear Hertz,

I was hoping we could discuss your recent spot on the eye of hell. There are a few things in there that I find a bit surprising.

We start off with Mr. and Ms. All-American-Youthful-White-Couple. Ms. AAYWC is in the passenger seat of a little yellow convertible. Mr. AAYWC, from behind the car, runs up to the rear bumper, and launches himself off of it, flipping over the car and into the driver’s seat, then immediately zooms off.

Questions and Comments

• Those shiny, colorful bumpers on contemporary American cars are really just bumper covers. They more decorative than anything else. I don’t think they’re intended to support your weight, even if you’re Mr. All-American-Youthful-White-Couple.
• That leap into the car is somewhat reminiscent of the old Hertz ads in which OJ Simpson is carried through the airport and into his rental by the omnipotent, invisible hand of Hertz. In this case, however, there’s no indication that Hertz is helping with the trick. If that’s correct, he’s jumping on his own, and that’s somehow more worrisome than the magic realism you utilized in the past. I sure hope he managed the jump without hurting himself.
• I didn’t see you (or your lovely companion, for that matter) buckle your safety belts before peeling out. I don’t know what state you’re in, but I don’t think that’s legal.

Back to our exciting commercial. We see the happy couple zipping around in the car. From a bird’s eye view, we see them weaving through highway traffic at high speed — significantly faster than anyone else on the road. They drive by a crowded gas station because Hertz, unlike other car rental agencies, will fill the tank for them for just a nominal fee. Finally, we see them driving past an airport, apparently faster than a jet that’s taking off behind them. And all the while, the car leaves a glowing yellow trail behind — sort of a cross between a contrail and a thick, radioactive lemonade.

Further Questions and Comments

• I wonder if they’re even bothering to signal their lane changes on the highway. Clearly they’re speeding, acting without any regard for the safety of their fellow drivers.
• Is that yellow cloud the car is spewing at all dangerous? It doesn’t look like it dissipates very quickly. Instead, it just lays there, menacingly glowing at those you’ve left behind.
• Can you imagine how those poor souls at the gas station feel? We only get the briefest of reaction shots of them, and they just seem confused, but I’ll bet that within a few seconds at least some of them are bound to wonder if that mysterious yellow fog might explode.

So, let’s see what we’ve got here. You’re performing acrobatics to get into the car, you’re not wearing safety belts, you’re speeding, you’re switching from lane to lane like you’re running a slalom, and you clearly have no concern for the health, safety, comfort, or even vision of other people, be they other drivers or pedestrians.

And at no time do you offer any sort of caveat to the viewer. I’m sure you don’t want your customers to take part in these activities, particularly in your vehicles. Maybe you should consider adding a little note of warning at the bottom of the screen. Something like “do not attempt” ought to get the message across, don’t you think?

A friend of mine wrote to me today asking if I was familiar with Guy Maddin’s film My Winnipeg. He’d seen it on an Air Canada flight, and as he put it, “Just the fact that Air Canada would put such a weird film on their movie list makes me want to immigrate there.” And he’s an immigration attorney. I think I’ve seen three of Maddin’s films — Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary, Cowards Bend the Knee (or The Blue Hands) and The Saddest Music in the World, and it would be fair to say I’m a fan.

My friend told me that the film is available at Netflix, so I popped over there. While I still consider myself a cinephile (cineaste, movie buff, whatever you want to call it), the fact is that I don’t see nearly as many films as I used to. Consequently, I don’t log in to Netflix that often. Before I checked on the Maddin film, I figured I’d look over some of their suggestions for me, based on my ratings — the famed “Movies You’ll ♥” page. I had thought that the recommendations were based on ratings from friends in addition to my own ratings, but apparently it’s all me.

Some of the recommendations and the reasons behind them seemed sensible enough. Samurai Rebellion was recommended because I liked Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and The Hidden Fortress. No problem there.

Ace in the Hole (also known as The Big Carnival) was recommended because of my positive ratings for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Annie Hall and Blue Velvet. I’ve seen Ace in the Hole, and I recall liking it, but it was a long time ago. It was one of the films we studied in my very first film studies class. The class was an English department elective in my high school, and basically involved memorizing the glossary at the back of Louis Giannetti’s Masters of the American Cinema (a book I ended up buying for a film class in grad school some six years later), and watching films while the teacher, the inimitable Miss Lily Achille, would shout out in her Eleanor Roosevelt/Margaret Dumont voice, “The framing! Look at the framing!”

Where was I? Oh, yes — Ace in the Hole. I appreciated being reminded of it, and may in fact add it to my queue. But I have no idea what it has to do with those three other films.

At the bottom of the recommendation page was a big surprise, with a few surprises attached. Under the heading Sports and Fitness Suggestions were the following three titles:

Now, just for starters, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to recommend anything to me from the Sports and Fitness category, unless you happen to be my doctor. I am, after all, a fat, lazy slob. This just isn’t my thing. But look at the films I liked, which led Netflix, in its infinite wisdom, to offer up these suggestions.

Lost in Transition is recommended because I enjoyed Lost in Translation

What do these two films have in common, apart from the similarity in their titles? Well, here’s the blurb for the recommended film:

Take an unforgettable journey in this action-packed film shot in multiple locations around the world, documenting snowboarding’s top athletes at the peak of performance. Facing off on some of the planet’s steepest slopes, featured boarders include Mark Landvik, Frederik Kalbermatten, Dave Downing, Eero Ettala, John and Eric Jackson, Markku Koski, Jeremy Jones, Mads Jonsson, Dave Downing, Benji Ritchie and more.

It’s just the similarity in the titles.

Crunch: Candlelight Yoga is recommended because I enjoyed Lilya 4-Ever

If you’ve never seen Lilya 4-Ever, you really should, but only if you think you can handle it. It’s very, very unpleasant. For someone in my condition, yoga (by candlelight or not) would also be very, very unpleasant, but I don’t think that’s the connection. I recall that there was a yoga show on PBS when I was a kid, called Lilias! Yoga and You, and the show’s host, Lilias Folan, is still at it. Maybe she’s on the disc, and Netflix made a Lilias/Lilya connection… Nope, that’s not it. The host of the yoga video is one Sara Ivanhoe (yeah, right). Lilya does find herself in a number of uncomfortable positions over the course of the film, but that just couldn’t be the connection. I’m at a loss on this one.

Finally, the most confusing recommendation of them all:

Billy Blanks: Bootcamp: Ultimate Bootcamp is recommended because I enjoyed The Short Films of David Lynch

What? Does Lynch do Tae Bo? Do the Ultimate Bootcamp workouts somehow involve running sores, or fear of sexuality and biology? Maybe during breaks they bring on a couple who bark like dogs while abusing their tuxedo t-shirted child.