I can't wait for Christmas!!

And to celebrate I force upon you the Star Wars Holiday special.



My brother Dean sent me the link to it - I LOVE IT. Almost as much as my Centro.

* * * * *

Someone finally threw a shoe at Bush.

Obama appoints yet another member to the DC Justice League!

Caroline Kennedy seeks Senate seat.

The biggest fraud in history?
Bernard L. Madoff's billion dollar scam.

From Russia with love.
Russia's Miss Consitution Pageant is a hit!

Susan Sontag's journals.
Can they possibly be as spicy as Anais Nin's?

I forgive you, Mitzi Gaynor!

I forgive you, Mitzi Gaynor. I gave Anything Goes another view, just because. And I still didn't like it. Except ... the above sequence is just magical. I've decided it's one of my favorite all-time movie scenes hands down.

I started watching George Cukor's A Star is Born a week ago, and I was initially immensely impressed. But I continued watching it last night and initially it was still great but THEN, endless dance numbers to terrible songs. These words flashed across my squishy brain: WHEN IS THIS MOVIE GOING TO END??? It didn't help when my father entered the room and after a brief silence (and during one of the worst numbers), noted, "You know all those people are dead now." Greeeaaat. There was also some embarrasingly hammy acting from Garland; it's a pity because she was an actress capable of such depth and raw energy, but I don't think she ever in her career truly utilized those acting gifts (other than through song).

I started to get annoyed, when suddenly after two hours of praying for it to end, James Mason completely broke my heart. My God. I have rarely seen an actor so realistically and agonizingly portray such pain onscreen. It was at that moment that I realized Mason made the film, and that I realized he had been consistent and authentic throughout the entire picture, even when everything around him was glitz and cheese. A Star is Born is not a movie about the travails of fame; it is a film about the self-destructive trauma of alcoholism. See it for Judy singing The Man That Got Away, but mostly see it for James Mason's performance.

* * * * *

And....

OMG! Corrupt Politician Alert I have my surprised face on. Not really.

We Need A Cure

Dark Knight DVD as Disappointing As the Movie Was No Heath Ledger extras. And he was the best thing about the film.

The Mouse is 40!

Greedy Fannie

NYT on Kate Winslet's The Reader

John Lennon The Rolling Stone interview "I always wrote about me when I could. I didn't really enjoy writing third person songs about people who lived in concrete flats and things like that. I like first person music."

Flor, You Can't Have Ed Norton, He and I Are in Love

Bush is like that awesome Ladytron song.

Re: Scary Boob

http://www.oilempire.us/bush.html

Ladytron

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtqGoHouoE0

Okay, so I'm not going to say that Bush destroyed the country, but I will say he maimed it. Americans are a
resilient (though sometimes brutish) breed, and will probably rebuild, but we all know how gloomy things are. Or do we? I don't think we've really had to bear the brunt yet of the madness, war, and excessive spending that the now 'lame-duck' administration has borne. It's all kicking in, and it's kicking in Hard.

The Wall Street Journal informs us that "the U.S. lost half a million jobs in November, the largest one-month drop since 1974, as employers brace for a recession that's expected to stretch through much of 2009," though they do conscend that, "the overall labor market is about 75% larger today, so the job cuts now represent a smaller share of the work force." The article also suggests that the way to resolve the national problem is to stabilize the housing market, and to heal the crippled credit system, which if you ask me sounds incredibly vague. It reminds me of Keenan's Weekend Update character yelling out, "Fix it!"

They also note that, "The tally of 1.9 million jobs pared thus far in 2008 surpasses the losses of the past two recessions, signaling that the current downturn could be the worst since the years immediately following World War II."

I just keep repeating to myself, "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job."

Yup.

Listening to: Lips Like Sugar
Words cannot describe how much I love this song.

Mitzi Gaynor, You Bore Me!!

Last night I watched The World is Not Enough and then Anything Goes. Because I am a crazy person, and I don’t sleep. I have to say that Anything Goes was kind of lame. Great music (Cole Porter was a genius), but all performed with a kind of bland winsomeness. Even Donald O’Connor couldn’t save this movie, and I LOVE Donald O’Connor. Mitzi Gaynor’s rendition of the title song had me yawning, and really made me long for Ethel Merman and Ella Fitzgerald. Sorry, Mitzi Gaynor, you bore me. Now, The World is Not Enough, that’s another story. Like all the ridiculously-named, sex-on-legs women in all these movies, I have a soft spot for Bond. The gadgets, the stuntwork, that classic score. I’d never seen this one before, and I have to say two things.

1) I hate Denise Richards more than Mitzi Gaynor and

2) Sophie Marceau terrified me. I mean, scariest Bond girl ever.

Oh, a third thing, I love Pierce Brosnan. He’s just perfect. I don’t know if I like where they’re taking the franchise, but Daniel Craig’s chest is so distracting I didn’t really follow the storyline anyway.

* * * * *

OCD’ers rejoice! Antibacterial soap is on sale at Bath and Body Works (4 for $10). Speaking of sales, apparently Black Friday didn’t go so well. Earlier in the week, the Commerce Dept announced that we’re seeing the lowest consumer spending since the early 80s. This is going to be the kind of Christmas where we all make awkward-looking cookies and handmade gifts. How is it that despite the financial lameness of the holiday, Radio Shack still ran out of TDK DVD-Rs (only $8 for 50) and CD-Rs ($10 for 100) – the only things I wanted. Well, I also wanted a really expensive camera that I can’t afford, but let’s be realistic. Despite the slump, Wal-Mart did well. Wal-Mart always does well; they’re like the cockroach of the industry – they’ll survive anything, even a nuclear holocaust. The world will be rubble and Wal-Mart will still be standing. Which I’m really glad about, because even though they are evil, I love nothing better than wandering through the aisles at 3 in the morning.

The country is in trouble, but we’re still doing better than everyone else. Probably because we’ve borrowed so much money from the rest of the world, we’re floating on that. I blame a lot of our troubles on outsourcing. Can someone Please, Please defend outsourcing to me? I have an open mind – if someone can please tell me how this is a good thing for the country in the long term, I will listen. Outsourcing = good for big business and Indians, but bad for the country overall.

* * * * *

Well, the death toll in Mumbai is now 195. The Pakistani prime Minister denies his country’s involvement. Zardari believes it’s a group set out to undermine India-Pakistani relations. This would make this situation just like the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies, in which evil Jonathan Pryce plots to set China and the U.S. against each other using the evil power of the media. I love Jonathan Pryce; I kept expecting him to break out into song and start hoofing it in that film. Don’t even get me started on Michelle Yeoh.

* * * *



I’m Listening to Sam Cooke’s rendition of Little Girl; and it’s fracking amazing. Sam Cooke and Otis Redding may well be the greatest male singers of the last century. Incredible. I’m working on a version of Redding’s I’ve Been Loving You Too Long. I’m obsessed with that song, I sing it like ten times a day. The bad news is eventually I’ll start to bore myself as much as Mitzi Gaynor bores me, the good news is practice makes perfect and I’m starting to perfect a killer version of that song. It’s good to be singing again, even if I’m only singing for myself.

A last note, and I didn’t want to write it, but it somehow feels wrong if I don’t acknowledge it, since it's the primary thing on my mind. David died ten years ago today, and the passing of the decade hasn’t made me miss him any less. I still secretly pray for him to come back, though I know it's irrational. I'm like a child in that way.








well, that's all.