District 9 movie marketing- will the political/ cultural allegories resonate?*

I have many (mostly) male friends, nerdboys of the highest order.  Like me, they collect action figures, watch Star Wars on a regular basis, debating the merits of the chapters, characters, arc and colors of the light-sabres and generally revel in the outright fantasy without guilt or embarrassment.
And rightly so.  They are some of the [...]

if all the world were a stage

i’d be totally frenched.  see, i hate theatre.  well, not theatre, musicals.  and not just in theatres.  in the movies, too.  although i know that the venues in which movies are played are called theatres as well.  and the soundtracks.  everything.  EVERYTHING about it. 
even my generational imperative for love of nostalgia, real, manufactured and otherwise, has [...]

figwit dances when he’s angry.

**spoiler alert**
only nerds of the highest order will even be able to understand this post, much less appreciate it.
i have recently, and belatedly, discovered and fallen in love with the flight of the conchords.  this may surprise some of you that know me and my absolute inability to tolerate spontaneous singing interspersed in storytelling- comedic [...]

mooks, maoris and .357 magnums

hi kids.
it’s been a tick since i last checked in with you, but i have been up to quite a bit.  i dropped into hong kong for a kip, caught on movies via qantas in demand, went to very many meetings, got a new roommate, took a bus tour up to northland and a boat [...]

a woman’s heart is a deep ocean

that’s what i learned tonight, kids.  
i finally sucked it up and watched titanic with sunny d, settling our bet from the march madness brackets at long last.  i have to say, while it’s not the worst movie i’ve ever seen (i fully expect battlefield earth to hold that honor forever), it pretty much lived up to [...]

things to do on a rainy day

that is if you’re an enormous nerd like me.
1.  Watch a Lifetime movie starring Jenna Elfman as a woman obsessed with a surgeon who has invented an entire relationship in her head (as well as a gauzily-lit psychiatrist and a contempt of court-prone journalist).  Best line from the court-appointed psychiatrist: “she has seven of the [...]

ah, the power of cheese

i don’t mean the literal foodstuff, cheese, though that clearly has it’s wonders and its merits.  no, kids, i refer to the sociological type of cheese.  and the creme de la creme of this cultural curd is, of course, B horror movies.
i have been traveling to and from cleveland almost non stop for the past [...]

just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean homeland security isn’t writing all this down

LOS ANGELES, May 10 — Michael Moore, the provocative filmmaker who has made a career out of skewering automakers, gun enthusiasts and the Bush administration, is being investigated by the Treasury Department over a trip he made to Cuba for his new film, “Sicko.”
This month the department sent a letter to Mr. Moore saying it [...]

jack! rose! jack! rose! doctor, insulin, stat!

In case you’re wondering, the subject line refers to the beating I took in the NCAA brackets. (Damn you Kansas!) My roommate has been dying to get me to watch Titanic for three years. Feeling cocky with my picks, I told her that if she beat me in the brackets, I’d watch it.
Now I [...]

o canada, or for those who thought of leaving when bush was elected

Biker Romp ‘Wild Hogs’ Debuts at No. 1
Sunday March 4 2:54 PM ET
The biker buddy comedy “Wild Hogs” and its ensemble cast of John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, William H. Macy and Tim Allen was the weekend box office champ with a $38 million take, according to studio estimates Sunday.
It was Walt Disney Co.’s biggest March [...]