Obesity, Speech Impediments, And You

I can only assume Hollywood is aware I exist and have hired a team of elite ninja masters to hide their most egregious shit from me until it's too late.

There is no other possible explanation or excuse for the FAT ALBERT MOVIE slipping past me, coming in second place, and taking in twelve million dollars over the weekend.

I had seen a poster indicating that yes, Hollywood would be MAKING a Fat Albert movie, but it wasn't until Christmas Eve that I actually saw any evidence that they'd finished it, and by then, they'd already released it. For a 600 pound dude in an orange sweater, that's REALLY FUCKING SNEAKY.

This fact is all the more stunning when you realize that "Fat Albert" is, by far, the single stupidest idea for a movie this year. Possibly this decade. It's still early. And 2004 is a year that gave us "Catwoman". I heard they pushed "Racing Stripes" into early January just so it wouldn't lose out to "Fat Albert" as stupidest fucking movie of the year. And "Racing Stripes" has a talking zebra trying to fit in with talking racehorses and a plucky pre-teen girl, so that begins to give you some idea of just. How. Incredibly. Fucking. Stupid. The "Fat Albert" plot is.

But here at You Are Dumb Dot Net, we don't settle for "some idea" when the full horror of the idea can be revealed in painstaking, excruciating, violating-the-Geneva-Convention kind of detail. You see, "Fat Albert" is not just a live-action version of the 70's cartoon. That would be too easy. It's a fourth-wall, Space Jam, Looney Tunes Back In Action esque clusterfuck that brings the Cosby Kids from their 70's cartoon world into the own modern 21st century era. Which should, if you're the audience I think you are, already be twisting your guts into tiny square knots.

They come to 2004, you see, to help out a sad teenage girl. This sad teenage girl is sad and crying because she has no friends. And one single, solitary tear from this sad teenage girl falls into her remote control, opening a MAGICAL TRANSDIMENSIONAL PORTAL through which the Cosby Kids travel. I must, at this point, ask you to stop hitting yourself in the skull with your stapler, for two important reasons. First, although the pain does make you remember what it's like to be alive, it will not make the bad movie go away without also removing the cognitive functions you need to keep reading this column. And second, because you need to be strong, as I'm not even close to done yet.

You see, it seems that the Cosby Kids cannot stay in our modern future flesh world for long, as their colors are fading. So presumably there will be some wacky, rollicking sequence toward the end, leading to a touching farewell scene, before the Cosby Kids return to their pre-crack housing project idyll. Yousee, their colors are fading. For fuck's sake. What a coincidence that the molecular deterioration caused by a saline-and-AA-battery-based transdimensional portal would exactly match the kind of cheap-ass digital coloring effect a low-budget, piece-of-shit, live-action cartoon movie would have available to it. There must have been cheers and free donuts for whatever 20th Century Fox physicist discovered that.

If, at this point, you are not plucking out your eyeballs and storing them in a safe deposit box just to prevent yourself from accidentally seeing any of this movie, let's seal that deal, shall we? Fat Albert... falls in love. With a human. Specifically, the hot foster sister of the sad girl with the magic tears. Let's say that again, because it's the kind of sentence that slides off of your brain, and makes said brain recoil with horror at the touch. Fat Albert falls in love with the hot foster sister of the sad girl with the magic tears.

You know, I remember when Bill Cosby went off yelling at the black community this year, and there was a great debate a-rising across the land. Was Captain Jello delivering a much-needed boot to the ass, or was he an old, out-of-touch coot who had completely lost it. Bill Cosby wrote this movie. Technically, Bill Cosby and Charles Kipps wrote this movie, but Charles Kipps has only written six things ever, and four of those were things he wrote with Bill Cosby. So I think that debate can safely end now.

Bill Cosby wrote a movie in which a 70's cultural icon finds himself, thirty years later, confused by modern technology and society, and gets involved with a hot young babe. Hm. And a couple million of you had no problem shelling out for that matinee, during a holiday weekend. And while I do apologize for not being aware of this sooner and warning you off, I can't hold your hands forever. You have to learn to spot these things on your own.

Spastic Mucus Monkey Friday

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The Mona Lisa Is Trying To Tell Me Something

Memo to America: YOU ARE MEDIOCRE.

That's what we really need to face up to. Some of the time we're a beacon of freedom and hope. A lot of the time we're reactionary douchebags. But the vast majority of the time, America, and American culture, is just... mediocre. Safe. We invented Wonder Bread, John Grisham, and Hanson, three crimes for which we still haven't atoned.

I mean, "Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice"? What, exactly, did she do as National Security Advisor, other than go on the Sunday talk shows and testify before the 9/11 commission about the briefings she ignored? MEDIOCRE AT BEST. And that earns her a promotion to Secretary of State? The good news is, her predecessor lowered the job qualifications to "must be willing to lie to the United Nations on command", and "must never be listened to ever", so Condi should do well enough on the job that when she's done, they can name another oil tanker after her.

But if you want a true example of American mediocrity, of that point in the bell curve where the clicking stops and you're about to raise your hands and start screaming, you need look no farther than the news that Ron Howard will be directing Tom Hanks in the fim adaptation of... The DaVinci Code.

The DaVinci Code is, of course, That Book. Every few years, America decides, as a nation, that we're all going to "read" a book. Partly to keep in practice, but mainly just so we can be seen carrying around stuff that proves we can read. "The Firm" was That Book for a while. The Harry Potter books aspired to That Book status for a few years, until they got too big. I seem to recall "The Thorn Birds" being That Book when I was growing up in the 70's. And right now, the book everyone is carrying around and pretending to read is "The DaVinci Code". It's apparently about some guy who discovers that hidden messages are encoded into DaVinci paintings, leading to a Dark Secret that could Change Everything. It's like "National Treasure", only done for people who realize that the "G" in "Gnostic" is silent.

It's not actually necessary to read "That Book". You just need to own a copy or two. You can leave it lying around, on the kitchen table or in your briefcase, with a bookmark somewhere in the first third, and can get away with saying things like "It's pretty good so far", or "I can't wait to see how it turns out", or "I didn't know they kept all those paintings in France", because all the people you'll be discussing the book with haven't actually read it either. They just held it in front of them on the bus so that they could stare at the Crazy Poodle Hair Woman without being noticed.

We don't have to read That Book, because if enough of us just go out and buy That Book, they'll make a MOVIE of it, and we can all go see the movie and know as much about what was in the book as anybody else does, and we can all nod knowingly at each other and say that the book was better, of course, and went into more detail. We ourselves won't go into more detail, because we understand the pact we've made with each other.

Obviously, when adapting one of America's most beloved pieces of unread fiction, great care must be taken, and that's why they brought Ron Howard on board. I will not make the obvious Opie or Richie Cunningham jokes, as the man who brought us "How The Grinch Stole Christmas", "Willow", and "A Beautiful Mind" does not deserve to be remembered for his harmless, dull, white acting past. Putting Ron Howard on "The DaVinci Code" is like putting the french fried onions on top of your green bean casserole. It doesn't make it better, it just makes it more recognizable, more comfortable.

The DaVinci Code's main character is Some Guy, and who better to portray Some Guy than Tom Hanks? Hanks, who can currently be seen as a creepy, plasticine caricature of himself *, is the cream of mushroom soup in the green bean casserole. Warm, processed, and slightly gooey. Ron Howard said of Hanks that "''Tom is an exciting actor to watch thinking," which shows that MASSIVE QUANTITIES OF HAIR aren't the only things that have gone missing from Howard's skull in the past few decades.

Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman is not mediocre. But he can be mathematically expressed AS mediocrity. Goldsman, you see, is the worst screenwriter in the universe. Through, I presume, the dark arts, he managed to win the Oscar for his "A Beautiful Mind" work, making him, technically, also the best screenwriter in the universe. And when you average out those two states, you get mediocrity.

Finally, we have producer Brian Grazer, whose name is attached to so much crap ("Kindergarten Cop", "Sgt. Bilko") and respectable work ("Sports Night", "Arrested Development", "Undercover Brother" that we must judge him by his words. It's BELATED ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

Speaking of an unnamed, Oscar-winning actress who wanted to play the part of a Parisian cryptologist: ''She could easily do it. 'But I think the audience would be let down a bit. They expect a French girl." From this, we can determine two things. Either Grazer is a complete idiot who doesn't realize the American audience will accept anyone as French as long as they wear a beret, or the actress in question was Halle Berry.

The DaVinci Code: The Movie, coming to theaters in 2005, so that you don't have to finish any of the three copies you own in 2004.

* And there's a CGI version of him in that Polar Express movie, too! I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

I've Got A Bad Feeling About This

Memo to America's Geek, Nerd, and Dork Communities: IT'S GONNA SUCK.

Having recently experienced the crushing disillusionment of false hope, I would not wish such a thing on my fellow man. So when I see signs of false hopes starting to arise, it's best I crush them quickly, where it will only twinge a bit, instead of letting them blossom to full flower before they are ripped from the hearts of the people.

And in the hierarchy of false hopes, "The Trailer Looks Pretty Good" is right on par with "the youth will turn out in droves to vote".

For those who are relatively new to the site, and my obsessive stalking indicates there are quite a few of you, allow me to state, for the record, the official You Are Dumb Dot Net policy regarding Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith.

1. "The Phantom Menace" was complete shit, and all the flashy lightsaber fights in the world cannot mask the fact that they portrayed one of cinema's all-time great villains as an annoying, bratty kid.
2. "Attack Of The Clones" was an even bigger pile of complete shit, "Dooku" is a stupid name, that thing around Jimmy Smits' neck needs to be dragged behind a dumpster and shot, and all the flashy lightsaber fights in the world cannot mask the fact that they portrayed what had, before Episode I, been one of cinema's all-time great villians as a petulant, obnoxious wanktard in looooooove.
3. George Lucas is an accomplished producer, a workmanlike director, and a shit writer.
4. All of the above leads to the inevitable conclusion that "Revenge Of The Sith" will suck, too.
5. You're going anyway.

People susceptible to Point Five will seize on anything they can to dodge the inevitability of Points One Through Four Inclusive. The "PG-13" rating. The homage to the original title for "Return Of The Jedi". And now, the first trailer. And what, pray tell, does this trailer give us to inspire false hope? Fucked if I know. Whatever it is, I don't see it.

The trailer uses the original movie as a framing device, which only serves to remind us of when Star Wars was cool. There's a bunch of clone troopers, which we've seen before, and have since been outdone by orcs. When Alec Guinness says "Darth Vader", they show Hayden Christiansen, further compounding one of the universe's fundamental points of wrongness. and then we see him, I think, in a hood. Scaaary.

But wait! VOLCANO! Yippee. I don't even know, at this point, how we all knew it was a volcano, but for aomost 30 years, we've known it was a volcano. So now we get to see the volcano and its CGI lava. You will forgive, perhaps, my lack of excitement. And then, intercut with headshots of the cast we've grown to hate over the past six years, is Darth Vader on an Imperial... dentist's couch. It's like they've replaced Ralph McQuarrie with an IKEA catalog.

And that's when the trailer really kicks into high! Spaceships we've seen before! Yoda with a lightsaber... just like the last movie! A whole army of Wookiees, which would be cool if they weren't DRESSED LIKE FUCKING EWOKS! * An alien made entirely of corduroy! Firefighting spaceships! R2-D2 hiding behind something! Amidala with Leia-muffins, proving that, like the Force, hairstyles have a genetic and biological component!

Lightsabers! Spaceships! Lightsabers! Spaceships! Lightsabers! Lightsabers! Spaceships! Imperial March! Why, it's almost as if someone at Lucasfilm came to the conclusion that the only worthwhile things left in the Star Wars saga were... lightsabers and spaceships! And put a bunch of lightsabers and spaceships in the teaser in a crass bid to regain an audience already burned twice!

I seem to remember the first two movies having a bunch of lightsabers and spaceships in the trailers, too. And I seem to remember these trailers NOT having things like borderline**-racist aliens, midichlorians, wacky robot head jokes, and soliloquies on the relative abrasiveness of sand versus Natalie Portman's epidermis. Because those were the shit parts. And when you take all the shit parts out of a Star Wars prequel, you have just enough footage left for a teaser, a trailer, and three TV spots.

We in the GND Community are being given a nigh-unprecedented opportunity to show we can learn from our mistakes. Will we seize it, moving boldly on to exciting, new, less-sucky things to obsess over? Or will we give in to our base natures, shell out our six-fifty, and walk out, two hours later, feeling like we've just soiled ourselves for the third time in a decade? I know where I'll be on May 19th. Do you?

*Yes, I know they wanted them to be Wookiees in Jedi. I also don't care.

**This word is a concession I make solely to stave off the inevitable nergument.

Revenge Of BAD CALL FRIDAY

Back in August, longtime readers of this column may recall that I inaugurated a new Friday feature: BAD CALL FRIDAY. It was such a stirring success that it was never once repeated... until NOW. Yes, it's time for another series of horrible mistakes made by celebrities, corporations, and public officials.

We start in Hollywood, where it was announced, a month or so ago*, that John Woo would be directing a new movie based on the venerable property, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. This is what experts refer to as a TRIPLE BAD CALL:

• Last year, they tried to resurrect He-Man with a new cartoon. The cartoon was awful, failed miserably, and was cancelled. Ergo, a new He-Man movie is a BAD CALL.
• Last year, they tried to resurrect He-Man with a new line of toys. The toys were super-crappy, failed miserably, and the line was cancelled. Ergo, a new He-Man movie strikes me as a BAD CALL.
• This year, they had the brilliant idea to make a new movie, based on a popular character, that had been portrayed in a shitty 80's movie by Dolph Lundgren. This film defied all odds by being almost as bad as (or worse than, depending on who you ask) the original, and was a critical and box-office disappointment. One can draw from this the conclusion that a new He-Man movie would be aBAD CALL.

And really, if you're going to take one 20-year-old piece of shit and bring it back with new "talent", why stop there? Remember "Band Aid", the African poverty benefit supergroup that narrowly avoided a trademark-infringement lawsuit from Johnson & Johnson? You know, the ones that put out the "Do They Know It's Christmas" song that has been inescapable for two months a year ever since? Well, they're remaking it. BAD CALL.

I mean, the original is bad enough. Sure, it's generally thought of as the best of the "save the hungry people" charity songs, but look at its competition. Plus, it was mostly British people, and that gives it bonus cultural cachet that obscures its general crapitude. But a remake? And it's not like they're getting the band (aid) back together or anything. No, this time they're assembling an all new "super"group of today's artists to re-record the song!

Farewell, Bono! You've been replaced by COLDPLAY. That's gotta fucking hurt. The only guy from the original Band Aid that's even remotely close to still relevant, and the coach pulls you out of the game so that those whiny "Yellow" fuckers can belt out "Feed The World". Remember Sting? You know, back in the 80's when he didn't entirely suck? Well, pack him into his Jaguar and send him off onto the ice floe, we've got Travis now. Boy George? Boy Schmorge! We've got a whole BAND full of glam assholes, The Darkness! And remember, when the remake comes out, every single time it gets pirated over the Internet, a child in Africa DIES.

And finally, the right-wing simply can't let "Fahrenheit 9/11" die. The DVD's been out for two weeks, which means it's now officially outside the "window of visibility", and gets stocked back with all the other "F" titles in the Documentary section. Most of the discussion of the film happened over the summer anyway; the DVD release really didn't incite any new arguing. But since the right can't just get on with it, today brings us theBAD CALL release of "Celsius 41.11", a movie title so bad and un-funny that it could have only come from pissed-off conservatives.

This new documentary**, written by Lionel Chetwynd, the man that gave us that stunning piece of Showtime fiction about how incredibly brave and decisive Bush was after 9/11, is named after the temperature at which your brain starts to deteriorate.BAD CALL. Chetwynd is quoted as explaining that "You tell enough lies, and the brain starts to die." Again, BAD CALL. I've thought of at least eight different punchlines for that quote in the time it took me to paste it. Make us lead the target a little, Chetwynd! Don't just stand there with a big target on your ass!

The documentary, intended as a "rebuttal" to Fahrenheit 9/11, spends a lot of time talking about John Kerry, which Fahrenheit didn't mention at all. Oops. Let me make fun of Chetwynd a little more, because his name sounds like an 80's prog-rock band, and because he said something else that was realy fucking stupid. ACTUAL BAD CALL QUOTE TIME!

"What was getting to me was Michael Moore's almost preternatural obsession with getting rid of Bush." - Lionel "HO-Scale" Chetwind. If "preternatural" means "beyond natural", and Moore's desire to get rid of Bush is "almost preternatural", that means it's almost beyond natural, which means it's COMPLETELY NATURAL. Along with the similar desires of anyone who's been paying attention for the past four years. Remember, kids. Being a complete dumbass in public is always a.... BAD CALL.

*They can't all be up-to-the-minute topical, you know.

**Note my kindness and taking of the moral high ground by not putting quotes around it.

String 'Em Up, Boys

Fuck politics.

There's just so MUCH of it, and it's interfering with our daily lives. I'd really love to get back to where we were before, and reduce politics to the level of a nuisance... oh, shit. Well, before the commercial attacking me gets aired, I'd like to issue a memo to a significant chunk of America: LAY OFF PARKER AND STONE, DUMBASSES.

Valenti may have stepped down six weeks ago, but the modern MPAA is his fucking Frankenstein, and they really need to take a long, hard look at what their role is supposed to be right now. Because whatever it is, I'm pretty damn sure it's not "protecting" us from naked puppets humping each other.

You are all, I hope, familiar with "Team America: World Police", which opens nationwide this weekend. It's the most important puppet movie since, well, EVER*. It's got puppets shooting things, puppets devouring each other, puppets blowing shit up, and puppets fucking. A lot LESS of the puppet sex than it was going to, of course, thanks to Dan "Valenti's Bun" Glickman and the MPAA.

Because if our nation's children, taken to an R-rated movie by their idiot parents, were to see two naked puppets bumping their faces and crotches against their faces and crotches, they may get the idea that sex is not a purely procreative act performed between two married people on anniversaries and birthdays in the missionary position, but rather an act of pure, selfish hedonism, performed clumsily while hanging from the ceiling by two dozen wires. And we can't have that. Especially now that the crop of Michael Hutchence imitators has finally run its course.

It took Parker and Stone nine attempts to edit the puppet sex scene so that it was acceptable to the MPAA. NINE TIMES. The MPAA must be the most discriminating puppet-sex connoisseurs on the PLANET. They've probably all won Nobel Prizes in puppet sex studies. I hear that in Burbank, they have a secret puppet sex library that rivals the Vatican's rumored porn collection. Nine edits. I wonder if they had to bring Valenti in as a special consultant. Valenti kind of looks like he could be the product of puppet sex, actually.

It's almost as if the MPAA, having been mocked and humiliated by the South Park movie, which then went on to be a critical, commercial, and Oscar-nominated success, decided to vindictively apply different standards to the two men who'd wronged them. But that's not the kind of behavior that befits the "voice and advocate of the American motion picture, home video, and television industries", does it?

Let's face it. All the MPAA is these days is an unpaid DVD extras consultant. They pick a bunch of stuff to cut arbitrarily so that children won't see it, and then all that stuff gets put back in for the "shocking" Unrated Naughty Edition of the DVD, freely sold at America's big-box retailers for fifteen bucks and owned and watched by the exact same children that were "protected" by the MPAA.

And on a similar note, Sean Penn's a dick. It's bad enough that his stated reason for being pissed at Parker & Stone is wrong. The South Park guys had the gall to say in an interview that stupid people shouldn't vote. You know why they said that? Because STUPID PEOPLE SHOULDN'T VOTE. And you know why stupid people shouldn't vote? There's a hint in the actual question. Six letters. Starts with "S". No, "Spicoli" is seven letters. Oh, and ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

""It's all well to joke about me or whomever you choose. Not so well, to encourage irresponsibility that will ultimately lead to the disembowelment, mutilation, exploitation, and death of innocent people throughout the world." - Sean Penn.

Sean, Sean, Sean. "Disembowelment"? Disembowelment cannot be stopped by the voting of idiots. Idiots are largely pro-disembowelment. Most of them think it's just fine when it happens to filthy brown foreigners, and the rest think it's an unreleased Def Leppard album.

But we know the real reason. It's why you had to deny, over and over again in your letter, that you didn't mind AT ALL being turned into a puppet and made fun of in Team America. You're great with it. It's just that pesky non-voting thing that made you accuse two Colorado guys of singlehandedly causing the world's disembowelment. Uh huh. The fact that more people will see Puppet Penn this weekend than saw Real Penn in the last three years didn't cross your mind at all.

So just back off. America wants... no, America NEEDS puppets right now. Stand in the way of the puppets at your peril. Puppet movies are the future of the industry for at least three more days, after which they will most likely be the past of the industry for another decade or so.

*If Jim Henson didn't want them called puppets, then I don't have to count any of their movies for purposes of ranking or comparison.

Don't Go Back To Huntsville

Fuck politics.

I mean, sure, it was unavoidable, with the debates, and the election only a few weeks away, that the column would turn excessively toward the nation's #1 sport for the stupid and evil, but I'm tired of it. And I bet you are too. Except for the bit about Bush part-owning a timber company, which, since it turned out to be true, is pretty fuckin' funny. "Need some wood", indeed.

But I've felt for a while now that it'd be a good idea to get back to the roots of the column, the kind of thing that I'm known for. Which is why I was so very happy, in my perusals of the news, to stumble across three brand new retarded Texans.

So, with a nostalgic tear in my eye, I would like to issue the following memo to Huntsville, TX residents Bobby Wooderson, Andy Slater, and Richard "Pink" Floyd. YOU ARE DUMB.

The three men, you see, went to school with acclaimed film director Richard Linklater, who, in his admittedly semi-autobiographical movie, "Dazed and Confused", included three characters - David Wooderson, Ron Slater, and Randall "Pink" Floyd. The movie came out in 1993, to modest success, but it apparently took over a decade for it to reach the desert hinterlands of Huntsville, TX, because now that the DVD has been out for two years, the locals have, according to the brand new lawsuit filed on behalf of the retards, made the three men's lives a living hell.

The case, which is being tried in New Mexico because the movie is eleven fucking years old and the New Mexico legal system is kind to slow people, raises a number of interesting legal questions. Can an artist freely utilize his own past to make works of fiction? Is it possible to make life in Huntsville, Texas more of a living hell? And is it possible to have any sympathy whatsoever for a car salesman who has kept his high school nickname of "Pink" Floyd for the past 28 years.

So what form, exactly, did the "relentless harassment, embarassment, and ridicule" take? What cruel emotional torture did these three men suffer to such an extent that they finally got around to taking legal action? The pain must have been unimaginable. Luckily, we don't have to imagine it, because it's ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"People make assumptions, basically, that he's [Slater's] involved in illegal drugs." - Attorney Ernest Freeman.

"We had fun in high school, but there is nothing true about that movie. Yet, I am having to deal with it all the time." - "Pink" Floyd.

And when Wooderson brought his son to Harvard, "all the kids there wanted to do was smoke pot with him", according to lead attorney Bill Robins III. Pronoun experts analyzing Mr. Robins' statements were unable to clarify whether it was the father or the son who received the cannabis-related taunting at one of the nation's most respected institutions of higher learning.

That's... pretty much it. No death threats, no vandals painting large "Have A Nice Day" smilies on the plaintiffs' new vinyl siding, just a bunch of pot jokes from a bunch of Texans who ran out of things to rent at Blockbuster and thought "Dazed and Confused" was a season-set of "That 70's Show" with that nice Ashton Kutcher boy in it.

The fact of the matter is, nobody would have made the connection to the movie if any of these guys had been either willing, or able, to GET THE FUCK OUT OF HUNTSVILLE. That's what Linklater did, and he got to make School of Rock. You three stuck around, and all you get to do is sell cars, put in kitchen cabinets, and "work in the technology sector", which is so vague that it probably means "holding the keys to the video game cabinet at Wal-Mart". And all of a sudden, now it's Linklater's fault that your lives suck? Just because people in Huntsville think it's funny to make toking gestures in your direction? Get over it. The people of Huntsville probably think it's funny to tell people the town was named after a guy named Mike.

Why, were it not for your lawyers' strident assurance that you were "not the type of people who are out to get a cheap buck", I would have thought you were precisely the type of people who are otu to get a cheap buck. Also the type of people who don't stay through the credits. Also the type of people who don't read much. I mean, having never seen the movie, I cannot guarantee that the disclaimer about "any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental" is in there, but I bet it is. Of course you weren't nearly as interesting as the characters in the movie. Of course your dialogue was worse. It was a MOVIE.

And you should be thankful it's a movie. 'Cause if it was a documentary, you know what they would have done for the DVD? They'd have come back to Huntsville, cameras in hand, to shoot a special feature about where the three of you are now. And if you think you were relentlessly harassed, embarrassed, and ridiculed for "appearing" in "Dazed and Confused", that hypothetical followup would have you jumping off the nearest bridge.

What If I Don't Wanna Find It?

Memo to Marc Forster: YOU ARE DUMB.

Like Schroedinger, I am faced with a pair of equally distasteful possibilities. Either I have a dead cat in a box, or I have a live cat in a box who is seriously pissed off at being stuck in a box just so I can look all smart and philosophical and crap. Either I'm about to dig a hole in the backyard, or I'm about to get between seven and ten claws in my eyeball.

Which, in grand comedic segue style, would be preferable to sitting through the fucking Finding Neverland trailer again.

By the way, I would love to be a fly on the wall at the Trailer Selection Meetings. Let's see. We've got a movie about airplanes, blimps, giant robots, and eyepatches. Let's hit that target audience with trailers for slapstick comedies, the awful-looking Lemony Snicket flicket, and wanktastic "period pieces". That's a brilliant idea. Even as an attempt to make The Incredibles look extra bonus awesome by comparison, it was an epic marketing clusterfuck.

That is, of course, in part because the trailer for "Finding Neverland" is a soul-destroying two minutes of celluloid hell. Which brings me back to the dead cat in a box. See, either the trailer is accurate, and "Finding Neverland" is actually MORE HATABLE than "Catwoman"*, or the director of "Finding Neverland", the abovementioned Marc Forster, hired a wilted cabbage to put the trailer together.

Assuming, for the moment, that the trailer is an accurate representation of the final product, it's safe to say that "Finding Neverland" is the punishment meted out by an angry, vindictive God on a population that embraced "Forrest Gump", "A Beautiful Mind", "Good Will Hunting", and "Shakespeare In Love". If you enjoyed three or more of the aforementioned movies, "Finding Neverland" is your fucking fault. If you only liked two of them, you are off the hook. This time. Unless one of the two was "Forrest Gump". Or one of the two was "A Beautiful Mind". Then it's still your fucking fault. If it was both of them, just walk away while seethe over here for a bit.

See, it's one of those Merchant Ivory type period pieces, where everyone rides around in carriages and takes walks through scenery because nobody's invented cable yet. Only it's made by people who've only seen 20 minutes of one other Merchant Ivory movie. On a weekend afternoon spent channel-flipping because they don't have to walk through scenery anymore. So they looked around, tried to figure out what oldey-timey book hadn't been optioned yet, and stumbled across something about the life story of the guy who wrote "Peter Pan", James Barrie.

In "Finding Neverland", Mr. Barrie is revealed to be an... wait for it... wait for it... an ECCENTRIC MAN-CHILD WHO NEVER REALLY GREW UP. A revelation so blatant and trite that it cannot possibly be true. And the trailer can't even bring itself to make the claim with a straight face. Instead of the already debased whore that is "Based On A True Story", the people behind FN have decided the movie doesn't even meet THAT standard of accuracy, and have settled on "Inspired by True Events". It was, in fact, inspired by three true events: the birth of James Barrie, the writing of Peter Pan, and the pulling of the rest of the movie out of the writers' collective asses.

All the derivative plot points are there - the uncomnsummated, borderline-adulterous friendship between Barrie and a struggling widow with four children; the tortured artist, the dresses with Kate Winslet in them (because when you have a movie with dresses in it, it's a rule, you stick Kate Winslet into one of them), and worst of all, the fucking Gumpian aphorisms about never forgetting yoru dreams and how magic can happen if you just imagine it hard enough. The kind of thing that makes film critics with repressed memories of abuse call the movie "WONDROUS!"

And on top of all that, just when you think it can't get any worse, you find out what startlingly original choice they got to portray the eccentric man-child who never really grew up. No, not Jim Carrey. He was much too busy getting a few million to phone it in under prosthetics in the Lemony Snicket movie. Plus, this thing requires a vaguely British accent, which leaves only one man for the job: JOHNNY DEPP. Yes, the universal lust-object of 1990's proto-goth Burtonite community. Once again, the elaborate focus-grouping and trend-predicting machine that is Hollywood has produced a movie tailor-made to incur my wrath.

But let's not be too hasty. Maybe it's just a bad trailer. What else has Marc Forster done for us? A quick check of IMDB reveals only one cinematic accomplishment of note - "Monster's Ball". Yes, ladies and gentlemen. Halle Berry's Oscar is Marc Forster's fault.

I rest my case.

* Note I didn't say worse. Just more hatable, which is a separate yet still important metric.

Don't Fear Change

Memo to the world: I LOVE YOU.

There is no hate in my heart today. Only joy. The kind of pure, effervescent joy that can only come from slamming fools into bridge pillars like they were Princess Di. I speak, of course, of Burnout 3, the holiest of holy driving games, a game so good that it makes me love everyone.

I love Dick Cheney. Thank you, Dick Cheney, for putting the lives of everyday Americans ahead of partisan politics. They may say the Bush administration didn't do enough to prevent 9/11, but they've learned from their mistakes. When Dick Cheney had concrete evidence that electing John Kerry would cause a devastating terrorist attack on America, they didn't sit on it. They ACTED. Cheney interrupted his own campaign speech to warn the American public that if they voted for Kerry, we would all die horribly at the hands of Muslim extremists who hate our freedom. You cannot help but love such an act of purest altruism.

I love George W. Bush, whose charming malapropisms and cottonmouth obviously belie a competence so understated as to be almost indistinguishable from random chance and background noise. Why, just the other day, in Missouri, he told a crowd of friendly, loyal Midwesterners that "Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many O-B-G-Y-N's aren't able to practice their, their love with women all across this country." Thank you, Dubya, friend to horny gynecologists everywhere. You're just like a regular guy. Plus, if I vote for you, I won't die in a terrorist attack ever again.

This is so much nicer, isn't it? Maybe I should see if "youaredumbbutthatsok.net" is taken. Without that extra bit of reassurance, really, the site seems awfully harsh and judgmental for the newfound joyheart beating in my lovechest.

I even love Bob Ferdinand, of Fridley. He wrote an insightful letter to the local newspaper about how global warming can't possibly be real because it was a lot cooler in his backyard this summer. Oh, sure, others have made that point beforehand, usually in jest, but Frigid Fridley Bob was deadly serious. He even used numbers (74% below average days!), so you know he must be a real scientist. I think it's great that scientists have stopped publishing the results of their climate studies in stuffy old scientific journals and put them in the editorial pages of newspapers. I can only hope that one day, there will be a scientist who learns to draw, and then he can teach us all about science right next to "Ziggy" and "Love Is". After all, the editorial page is still a bit hoity-toity, what with it being near all those long, boring stories at the back of the main section of the paper.

I love George Lucas. He's a brilliant writer and an epic filmmaker whose best moments, ironically, are in the small scenes, like when C-3PO got his head stuck on a Battle Droid's body, or when Anakin Skywalker compared Queen Amidala's skin to sand. His only real flaw is that he is, like all great artists, a perfectionist. I think it's great that he's changed the Special Editions even MORE for the DVD release of the Star Wars trilogy, with a new Jabba, a new voice for the Emperor, and putting dreamy Hayden Christenson's ghost where that lumpy Sebastian Shaw guy was in "Jedi". I mean, if I could go back and change my eighth-grade history papers and get them regraded and then bought by millions of devoted Bryan Lambert's Eighth Grade History Paper fans, you know I would.

Actually, that's a great idea! The Web is impermanent! It's all-digital! It can be seamlessly changed. I will follow the example of my new hero George Lucas and create You Are Dumb: Special Edition. Reflecting the newfound joy and love in my heart, I'll go back and "digitally remaster" all my old columns! Zell Miller's not that bad a guy! It's not pigfucking, it's piglovemaking! Ninjas and Mormons CAN get along in peace and harmony! People aren't dumb and wrong, they're just... misguided! Differently-thinking!

Plus, now that I'm a more experienced web-columnist, I can go back and add technological innovations I didn't have available to me back in February, like Flash animations! Multi-colored text! Blink tags! You'll be able to experience You Are Dumb Dot Net all over again, for the first time! Only nicer! And friendlier! And full.... of.... love.........

Why are you all looking at me like that?

Jesus, Zell, and Footnotery

It's Labor Day, so all you slackers who only read the column when you're bored at work won't be around to read this anyway. Which means I get to half-ass it* for the holiday.

Memo to America's Retail Establishments: ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE STOCKING ENOUGH "PASSION" DVD'S? I saw enough copies of this over the weekend to build a giant cross out of, although what you'd do with a ten foot cross of "Passion" DVD's is beyond me. This DVD, and the incredible overstocking thereof, raises some fascinating new theological questions that only I am truly qualified to address. Well, me, and the Pope, but today is Jello Day at the Vatican, so El Popemeister is going to be occupied for hours. This leaves it up to me.

Which is more blasphemous? Taking the chance that your store might be OUT of "Passion" when one of the faithful comes to purchase it, or ordering so many copies that Jesus ends up clearanced in a few months? On the one hand, the Bible may very well say at some point ** "Seek, and ye shall find", and if someone seeks out the DVD at Target and they don't find one, God will kill a kitten or something.

On the other hand, once Christmas is over with, and "Passion" is on the $9.99 rack between "Big Daddy" and "Torque", how does that make Jesus look? Not good. And he's supposed to be exalted or something**, not thrown into a wire bin by the bucketload.

And in the "caveat emptor" department, I can't help but notice that "Passion" is available in both widescreen and full-screen. Obviously, from a marketing standpoint, that's an excellent idea, as a good 30% of the target "Passion" audience thinks that the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen were put there by Satan. Another 10% will wonder why the hole in the middle won't fit over their record-player spindle, but that's beside the point.

If someone buys the full-screen version of "Passion", then thanks to the miracle of pan-n-scan, they are eliminating and avoiding approximately 30% of JESUS' SUFFERING AND AGONY. And since Jesus suffered and died for your sins, by picking the Video Format of the Retarded, you are actually re-instating 30% of your lifetime sinning. That may be enough to tip your balance and send you to hell, where all the movies are widescreen, but they're also all by Paul Verhoeven*** and Joel Schumacher.

And nobody wants that. So remember, folks, when it comes time to experience the religious fervor, blood, and non-stop torture of Jesus in your own home, make the right choice. Choose widescreen. After all, WWJALRBAASPFLMGW****?

---

You know, it's strange. I'm not sure how it happened, but after the Republican National Convention last week, there were a whole lot of people looking around on the Internet for why Zell Miller was such a psychotic fucking asshole. Thanks to the magic of search engine technology, they stumbled across this site, which could damn well be a wikipedia***** on the subject of Zell Miller's perfidy.

But I haven't really touched on Zell's RNC performance, or his Hardball and CNN encores, because frankly, thanks to that, the rest of the country has caught up with what we've known for a long time. Zell Miller is a raving, antiquated lunatic whose only real ties to the Democratic Party stem from the days of segregation. And because there's more money and notoriety being a "renegade Democrat" than there is being yet another cranky old Southern conservative racist rightie. And while his performance at the RNC was not surprising in the least, he can still go fuck himself. Plus, The Daily Show was all over that "challenge Chris Matthews to a duel" stuff like bald on Rob Corddry.

* I mean more than usual, of course.

** I think so. While you might think my lack of familiarity with the text of the Bible would limit my qualifications to speak on Christian theological matters, I actually find it quite freeing.

*** And not Robocop, either, so don't get your hopes up, sinners. It's all Showgirls and 8mm. If you only sinned a little, you get Phone Booth.

**** What Would Jesus, As Lovingly Rendered By An Anti-Semitic Psycho Fundie Like Mel Gibson, Watch?

*****A wikipedia is an encyclopedia made up entirely of entries by people on the Internet who think they know shit. They have, as you may guess, plenty of volunteers.******

******Boy, that's a lot of footnotes!

Silent Bob: Shut Your Pothole!

Memo to Kevin Smith: SELF-ESTEEM ISSUES MUCH?

The necessary disclaimer - I have not seen "Clerks". I have seen "Mallrats" in half-hour overlapping chunks on afternoon TV. I despise "Chasing Amy" with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. I thought "Dogma" was OK, but it really doesn't hold up to repeated viewings, or even repeated flip-pasts on Comedy Central. I felt no need to see "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" or "Jersey Girl". Now, on to Kevin Smith's deep-seated mental problems and general hackery.

So, Kevin. You want to make "Clerks II". That's fine. We all understand. Really we do. It's OK. After all, you're 34 years old. Prime mid-life crisis age. And the Jersey Girl thing was a bit of a bump in the career road, wasn't it. That kind of abject failure is enough to shake even a stalwart man. The desire to return to the womb, to those halcyon days when you were a celebrated indie wunderkind, is perfectly natural.

Those were good times, weren't they? Back then, putting a Green Lantern reference in your movie was pretty hot shit. Not like now. Now there's Google. So on the off chance someone didn't know who Green Lantern was from actually being a comic geek, or watching the Justice League toon, or hearing about the Jack Black Green Lantern movie that isn't actually being made, they could just look it up in five seconds. From their cellphone. During the movie. In its first run. And all of a sudden, knowing about Green Lantern and putting him in your movie isn't such a big deal. But you pioneered that, man. That's your ouevre. If you'd patented making big stars talk about obscure shit that only nerdy writers knew about, you could retire.

Same with lesbians. I know I miss the time when you could put a beautiful, committed lesbian in your movie, have her screwing Ben Affleck by the three-quarter point, and still be considered progressive and daring. Not now, though. Damn shame, really. Now Spike Lee's getting in trouble for his lesbians wanting purely procreative sex. These are different times. Scary times. Complicated times.

So you want to revisit your youth. That's fine. But don't try to pretend you suddenly have hit upon the Great Sequel Idea, and this isn't about the Jersey Girl box office tallies or your own feelings of inadequacy. The "I wouldn't have done a sequel, but I had this AMAZING IDEA" excuse is not only rampant throughout history, it's one that, as a self-professed comic book geek, you should be infinitely familiar with. How many comic writers have used the Amazing Idea ploy to justify bringing back some dead superhero or other? How many of these ideas were actually amazing? I know you know. I bet you can cite issue numbers.

So don't feed us bullshit in interviews like "I thought about it honestly, and it would seem chicken to not give it a shot just because I'm afraid of fucking with the first film." Because after Amazing Idea, the pseudo-rebellious, I'm-no-chicken, go-ahead-and-call-me-a-sellout-my-heart-is-pure line is the SECOND most common bullshit creative types spew for going back to the well that spawned them.

What is the Amazing Idea? What is the movie so daring he would be a chickenshit NOT to film it? Well, let me put it this way. You remember Dazzler? You know, the one with the roller skates and the huge hooters? Well, I remember the one time where like Doctor Doom or some shit had Dazzler in his, like, metal clutches, and she said, "It's ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!"

"It's about what happens when that lazy, 20-something malaise lasts into your 30s. Those dudes are kind of still mired, not in that same exact situation, but in a place where it's time to actually grow up and do something more than just sit around and dissect pop culture and talk about sex. It's: 'What happened to these dudes?'"

Come ON. Sigmund Freud's rotting corpse passed on this case because it's TOO DAMN OBVIOUS. "Jersey Girl" was what happened when you tried to grow up and do something more than just sit around dissecting pop culture and talking about sex. And the world rejected it, fairly or otherwise. The only way this could be even more of a cry for help is if, at the end of the Clerks 2 script, Dante and Randal go back to the convenience store, and there's a big HELP WANTED sign on the door, fade to black... "A KEVIN SMITH FILM."

It's OK, Smith. We all understand. And we care about you*. But your first step is admitting that you have a problem.

*This sentence is, from a purely technical, factual standpoint, not actually true. But it's what you say in these situations.

But "Glaring Angrily Matilda" Doesn't Scan!

Memo to Hollywood: WHY DO YOU HATE US?

Actually, that's a stupid question. They hate us because we are so very hatable. We earn Hollywood's hate every time we go see "Alien Vs. Predator" or "White Chicks". Every time we engage in any interaction anywhere at any time with anyone who fancies himself to be a "Blue Collar Comic". When we do these things, it's like we put hate in the bank, and eventually we are then handed back that hate with interest by a cold, unfeeling entertainment industry who wants nothing more than to destroy our very souls and have us pay them for the privilege.

And I'm fine with that. Up to a point. But there is a point beyond which Hollywood's inhumanity to man exceeds even a very judicious application of karmic payback. A point beyond which audience abuse ceases to be a fun little game we all can enjoy, you know, like cockfighting, and becomes a horrible ritual of gratuitous pain and suffering. You know, like if there were a version of cockfighting where instead of chickens, there were cute puppies, and instead of fighting, there were large men with iron mallets playing Amish Whackamole*.

That level of abject cruelty can be summed up in a single, informative sentence, taken from a leading DVD news site regarding upcoming Warner Bros. releases. If you have a weak stomach or a mild constitution, you may want to skip this, as it is horrific beyond belief.

"And finally, look for the direct-to-video animated Kangaroo Jack: G'Day USA! on November 16th. This disc features both 16x9 and fullscreen transfers and unannounced extras. Retail is $24.98." This is the kind of sentence that should be engraved in some runic script of a forgotten tongue on the side of a rock in the middle of a barren wasteland where the natives dare not go. It should not be lying around on otherwise respectable Internet where people can read it by accident.

It's the sentence equivalent of a Shit Pyramid, one of the nine wonders of a world gone horribly wrong. At the base of the shit pyramid is, of course, the central concept, "Kangaroo Jack". Kangaroo Jack is the "Play It Again, Sam" of ubercrappy wacky comedies, in that everyone is convinced it is an ubercrappy wacky comedy about a talking kangaroo, when in fact the kangaroo talking is only part of some fantasy sequence midfilm. So while it is a film about a kangaroo that talks, it is not a film about a talking kangaroo. You would think this level of semantic nitpickery would be above a film like "Kangaroo Jack", but we have to retain our dwindling sanity somehow.

Then, one level up, we have those dreaded words, "direct-to-video", which, along with the implied "sequel", are four words that have never helped anybody ever. On top of that, we have "animated". So not only are they making a sequel, and not only are they not bothering to put it into theaters, but they're not even bothering to hire actors and special effects artists. They'll just have a bunch of Koreans drawing kangaroos for fifty cents an hour. And what's worse, an animated sequel opens the doors to "Kangaroo Jack: The Series", and the resulting mass suicides and general hysteria that would follow.

Moving up the Shit Pyramid, we come to "G'Day USA!". Now first of all, I am still not convinced that Australians actually ever said "G'Day" to each other on a regular basis. But even assuming they did, I can only imagine they'd have collectively decided to stop doing it a minimum of fifteen years ago out of sheer annoyance. In fact, if I were Australian, I'd constantly be making up ridiculous shit to say on the off chance an American would hear me and use it in the title of their shitty Australia movie. And second, "USA". Is there some kind of federal mandate that Australians who get sequels have to come to the U.S.? Some kind of Paul Hogan NAFTA thing? After all, I'm pretty sure that at this point, thanks to global telecommunications networks and the advance of civilization, that most Australians are well aware of what "cars" and "McDonalds" are, so the whole "culture shock" thing can be buried for good, thanks.

"Kangaroo Jack: G'Day USA!" will be provided in both widescreen and fullscreen aspect ratios. This is, of course, so that people purchasing "Kangaroo Jack: G'Day USA!" have the widest possible freedom of choice when it comes to audiovisual presentation, and those who wish are able to see the full vision of the director as he intended it.

Oh, and it lists for twenty five bucks, which is just insulting. It's insulting even when you consider that with a list of $25, it'll sell for $20 nearly everywhere ($27.95 at Suncoast), be on sale for $15 its first week of release, and then be stacked like cordwood on the $4.99 rack at Target by mid-January. Twenty five bucks for a direct-to-video ,animated, full-frame DVD Kangaroo Jack culture shock fish out of water sequel. That's our entertainment industry, never passing up the chance to redefine "unmitigated gall".

*The use of the phrase "Amish Whackamole" is merely intended to imply that traditional Whackamole requires electricity, and in the absence of such, an alternative means of playing it would have to be found. It is not meant to imply that the Amish pound puppies** with iron mallets for sport. That's just the way they make butter.

**That's a verb, as opposed to "Amish Pound Puppies" the noun, which would refer to the least successful new toy line of 1987.

Comedy Death Blossom

This doesn't even qualify as a Spastic Topic Monkey Friday. It's been a solid week, comedy flowing like sweet sweet wine, but I'm tired and spent. So here's a bunch of crap that's crossed my mind in the last 24 hours.

- I saw Joan Rivers on Graham Norton last night. I've decided, now that Bob Hope has finally passed on that Joan Rivers is the celebrity who should just fucking die already, please. Useless protoplasmic cyborg bitchsack. All she's done for the past two decades is provide surgeons with boats. She's had so much work done that she now looks like the Spitting Image puppet of herself. Wayland Flowers keeps putting his hand up her ass by MISTAKE. Skynet learned to make Terminators from her fucking X-Rays.

- A commercial claims that Joel Siegel claims that nobody watching the Manchurian Candidate will be able to exhale during the last 30 minutes of the film. I assume that's some sort of compliment. The movie is so good it turns your lungs into Bags Of Holding. You can inhale all you want, but you can't exhale. It's like Hotel California with oxygen molecules replacing Don Henley. Normally, I would be 100% behind any circumstance in which Don Henley is replaced by free-floating molecules of oxygen, but come on. Better pray for immortality, Siegel, because Pauline Kael is waiting in the afterlife with a spiked club and a long memory.

- Your Compassionate Conservatism Moment: "Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy, or go on Prozac?" Bush campaign assistant Susan Sheybani. Sheybani made the comment while transferring a phone call from a reporter asking about poor-quality jobs. The bad news is, she didn't think the reporter could hear her, and he could. The GOOD news is, he works for USA Today, and they needed someone to replace Ann Coulter with anyway. Thank you. I've been here all week. Try the veal. Next week on Leno, Ben Affleck.

I mean, come ON. How many times does the veil need to slip off before we realize under the flimsy fabric of "compassionate conservativism" are a whole bunch of greedy assholes who've gotten theirs and only pretend to give a shit about other people because it's good P.R.? The Democrats care about people's suffering*. All they pretend is that they can do something about it. It's part of their broader plan of pretending, in general, that they can do something.

- "Revenge Of The Sith". Yay. Here's my prediction. Over the next however many months before Episode III comes out, I will occasionally mention to my geek friends, nerd aquaintances, and probably within earshot of creepy stinky guys in comic shops, that I will not be bothering to see Episode III. I base this decision on Episode I being shit and Episode II being shittier. Dungfests. Craporama. Even discounting Jar-Jar. Even discounting Jimmy Smits infamous-only-to-me-and-people-around-me-a-couple-of-years-ago crocheted neck doily. I ain't going. And every single one of those people are going to tell me "But you GOTTA."

Why? Am I somehow not going to hear what happens in it? Will I be bereft entirely of Star Wars, at least in non-toy, non-videogame, non-three-minute-not-sucking-animated-shorts, non-napkin, non-shitty-Kevin-J-Anderson-novel form? Why do I gotta? No, screw that. I know why I don't gotta. Why do YOU gotta? Look within, young retardawan. Find that within yourself which blinds you to history and reason. Find it, and stab it in the gut with your mechanical pencil and leave it bleeding in the gutter. And then we'll go see Serenity again. You'll be happier. I'll be happier. We can hear about how that whiny pudpuller gets his black suit on the Internet in three minutes if you're that desperate to know.

- Fuck "bounce". For the rest of the campaign, if you hear anyone using the word "bounce" in regards to the election or polling, they are to be considered a fuckhead and not worthy of your attention or trust. Especially if they're predicting a bounce. Especially especially if they're comparing actual bounce to their prediction. Especially especially ESPECIALLY if they're comparing actual bounce to someone ELSE's predictions. It's bad enough that we have reports of meaningless, barely accurate polls every single day. Now, suddenly, it's a story when the numbers in these meaningless, barely accurate polls do not match up with politically-motivated predictions pulled out of the major-party asses?

Does nobody in the media evaluate ANYTHING? It's not as if the motivations behind "bounce prediction" are even remotely opaque. Political parties low-balling their own or high-balling their opponent's expectations is just noise. Everybody knows this. Five-year-olds can figure this out. Yet, seemingly, nobody is actually willing to make the decision that yes, this whole thing is bullshit, and we have an obligation, as journalists, to NOT SPREAD BULLSHIT.

Oh, wait, I'm hearing from Fox News that, counter to Karl Rove's predictions, John Kerry was not immediately carried off into Heaven to replace God Almighty Himself on his throne following his acceptance speech last night. That has to be a major blow for the Kerry campaign. Coming up next, Bush and a puppy!

* OK, Lieberman doesn't. But he's an ass.

Actual Quote Day 2: Berry, Berry Dumb

Memo to Halle Berry, Part II: HOLY SHIT, YOU'RE DUMB.

I actually ran out of room in yesterday's column before getting to the end of a single Halle Berry interview. So today we pick up where we left off, with more choice wisdom from everyone's favorite Oscar-winning amnesiac dominatrix.

"I defy anyone to see me as Catwoman. I'm balls to the wall."

What does that even MEAN? Is she challenging people to NOT go see the movie? Is she daring us to risk seizures by going? Halle, you're on the cover of dozens of magazines in the costume. We've already seen you as Catwoman. You can't defy us that now, whatever the fuck that particular verb means in that particular context. But at least you're "balls to the wall". Whose balls, and whose wall, is anybody's guess at this point. Whatever brand of glue they used to attach that costume to you needs to be recalled, because the fumes do ugly things to brain chemistry.

"I grew up watching the 'Batman' TV series in the '60s. My favorite episodes were the ones where Catwoman was on. I couldn't resist mimicking Eartha Kitt because her kind of woman is just in my psyche."

Now, for the proper context of this quote, it's important to remember the bit from yesterday, where Berry claims that they desperately wanted to do something different from all the previous Catwoman, and didn't want to be compared to them. Remember that? Odd, then, that you would set about not being compared to previous Catwomen by MIMICKING ONE OF THEM. That's tactically iffy at BEST. But wait, there's more!

"The good thing about the movie is that we acknowledge all of the Catwomen of the past. We believe there are nine Catwomen, and I'm just one of them. So, I'm my own version who is a little more urban."

Again, what better way to avoid comparisons with previous Catwomen than to acknowledge all of them! Brilliant! At least this one's more urban. I'm so sick and tired of all those Catwoman stories set on fucking farms and in jungles. We've had Amish Catwoman for far too long! It's time for a change!

And how, exactly, did Halle Berry, who came into this world in August of 1966, manage to grow up watching the Batman TV series in the 60's? The show itself ran between '66 and '68. I suppose Halle could have been an incredibly precocious one-and-a-half-year-old when the series ended its run, but if so, there's no sign of her astonishing prodigy status now. Or she could have meant she watched reruns during the 70's, in which case she just can't get her goddamn prepositions straight. And speaking of not getting things straight, let us turn to the Curious Case of the Confusing Cat Conundrum.

"I didn't have a cat when we started this process, but I have one now. He was my little muse on this movie and I call him Fig Newton. We had 60 cats that worked on the movie. He was supposed to work as an actor, but I took him away from that life. Now he's retired. He didn't even work a day!

That quote isn't particularly dumb by itself. However...

"For the moment, Berry has only one guy in her life - Playdough, the homeless cat she adopted after "Catwoman" wrapped. Playdough was one of 43 cats used in the making of the film, and he warmed his way into Berry's heart." - The New York Post.

"'I have watched my cat and I listen to how he purrs and plays and walks and when he gets angry. And there's a sound that he makes that I've tried to use, too.' Her cat is one of the 60 homeless cats used in a scene in her last film, "Gothika," with Robert Downey Jr." - Zap2It.com

So, let me get this straight. Halle Berry was able to use the mannerisms of the cat, one of between 43 and 60 cats used on either "Gothika" or "Catwoman", to help her in the role, even though she may have adopted the cat after the movie wrapped, and the cat is alternately named "Playdough" or "Fig Newton". And he either worked on the movie or he didn't. Got it. Still, they are very touching stories about the bonds between cat and woman, and I'm sure all of them are true in their own unique way. What the hell. They still aren't bothering to fact-check the Iraq-Al Qaeda connection, so there's really no particular impetus for Halle to spend any part of her limited mental capacity on keeping track of when she acquired her cat or what its name is. That's why stars have personal assistants.

As we learned yesterday, Catwoman is about female no really we mean it empowerment. And sure, perhaps yesterday she used a bad example to describe how, exactly, a skimpy leather outfit and face-licking is pro-womyn, but let's give her another shot. I mean, I bet she's taken the amazing womanpower given to her by starring in this movie and applied it in her everyday life.

"There was a sales clerk in there being extremely rude to a woman that I was standing next to, and I stood there and I thought, 'Wow! If I were Catwoman right now I could pounce on her and scratch her eyes out!"

That's so empowering. That's so incredibly empowering that I wish I were part of Halle's Great Sisterhood of Power and Womanitude, but alas, I am not. I can only watch from afar as they jump all over each other and scratch each other's eyes out. You've come a long way, baby.

"I will not marry again. I'll never get married again -- that's a fact. The man for me is now the cherry on the pie, but I'm the pie and my pie is good all by itself, even if I don't have a cherry. That's the way I'm looking at it -- my pie is good all by itself and that sometimes means being alone, but I'm OK with that these days."

It's taken two days and a dozen quotes, but Halle, you've finally made me completely superfluous. I salute you.

Actual Quote Day!

Memo to Halle Berry: YOU ARE DUMB.

I decided to issue myself a challenge. Could I take the already smash-hit concept of ACTUAL QUOTE TIME and create an entire column out of it? I would need a subject near to the black depths of my heart-hate, and someone associated with that topic known for saying utterly ridiculous things. If Halle Berry did not exist, I may have had to invent her. But she does exist, and, in existing, speaks.

"We didn't want to do what had been done before. We so desperately didn't want to be compared to the Catwomen of the past."

Which is why they named the movie "Catwoman", then? Which is why you've taken your vocal cues from Eartha Kitt? I think we all know why you don't really want to be compared to the Catwomen of the past: because it's the fastest, easiest way to portray just how much your Catwoman sucks. And since when, exactly, have the makers of a summer action movie really not wanted to do what had been done before? They all SAY that, but they never mean it.

"Catwoman was supposed to have scratched the leather away. It was an attempt to update it and make it more reflective of the 21st century"

This, of course, is referring to her costume, and not some scene where Sharon Stone squirts Berry with a water bottle after Halle ruins the couch. Come to think of it, I think that one sentence contains a better scene than will actually appear in the entire Catwoman movie. But that's beside the point. We're supposed to believe that in some sort of feral rage, Catwoman decided to claw away, in neat, clean lines, the shoulders, chest, back, and belly (barring a few straps and metal links) of her outfit? Still, it is more reflective of the 21st century. The clearance rack of Hot Topic in the 21st century.

"With Catwoman, you don't know if she's gonna kiss 'em or kill 'em. She's like the good girl who loves to be naughty. I think that symbolizes female empowerment."

No, you stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid fucking idiot. The good girl who loves to be naughty is not female empowerment. It's a goddamn conservative male fantasy. Have you not seen the "Hot For Teacher" video? Are you trying to tell me David Lee Roth is the new Gloria Steinem? Do you believe what you're saying? Do you even HEAR it? Stop trying to pawn off your 1953-vintage Penthouse letter as if you're furthering the goddamn cause.

"Every time I put that suit on I walked differently, I felt differently. People would keep their distance from me. I didn't feel like a dominatrix when I had [the costume] on, but I guess I don't even know what that would feel like."

I don't even know where to start. It's like some kind of verbal Whack-A-Mole. You walked differently because it was RIDING UP YOUR ASS. You felt differently because it was RIDING UP YOUR ASS. People kept their distance from you because you were in Hollywood, and everybody in Hollywood is deathly terrified of SHITTY MOVIE COOTIES. And what do you mean, "you guess"? You either know what it feels like to be a dominatrix, or you don't. There's no gray area here. Unless you're prone to frequent blackouts, that is. Maybe you really don't know whether or not you've ever tied a guy up and peed in his mouth. It's possible. It's something I personally would want to keep TRACK OF if I were you, though. Maybe use Post-It notes.

"I never want to be one of these actors where people say, 'Oh, that's a Halle Berry role.' I don't want that to be my tag."

Finally, something we can agree on. I, too, would like Hollywood to never again look at a part and say "Oh, that's a Halle Berry role." Seems to keep happening, though, doesn't it.

"One of the reasons I've decided to get involved in commercial movies in Hollywood is that in order to have a long career, you have to be a part of the commerce of the industry - a part of making money for the studios,"

ATTENTION, EVERYONE. Ms. Berry would like it to be known that her participation in the shitty Cat movie, the shitty Bond movie, the tiny part in the X-Men movies, the shitty Gothika movie, the shitty Travolta spy movie, fucking "B*A*P*S*", the Flintstones movie, etc... that was all just a personal business decision so that she could pursue her ART and her CRAFT in, um, Monster's Ball and the Dorothy Dandridge TV-movie. No, really. She's got an Oscar, you know. But then, so does Akiva Goldsman.

And now, four words that have never before been uttered together in the history of You Are Dumb Dot Net: TO BE CONTINUED, TOMORROW.