Kick-Ass Movie Trailer

Thanks to my friend Bill for pointing out the trailer for the new comic book movie Kick-Ass is out. The comic is really a Gen Z take on hero-dom, and is a terrific read. The movie looks like it's gonna rock, too.

Wanted:

Randy Quaid, AKA "Cousin Eddie"

Food, Inc.

A significant responsibility for those living on a functional farm is caring for, then slaughtering and butchering, livestock. At least it was for me, during my teen years. Especially during my early teens, my family lived off the harvest and livestock as a primary source of food. At 13, it wasn't unusual to hear "Go catch a chicken for dinner."

I did. And it was.

Once during late summer I saw my father preparing to kill a bull. Shooting guns was fun for me at that age, so I asked if I could do it. My dad paused:

"No, you can't," he said. "Killing isn't something anyone should ever do for fun. Even killing animals for food. The animal and act should be respected."

Food, Inc., a documentary by Robert Kenner, illustrates well how the respect for that process has been lost in the modern-day industrialization of our food processing system.


Keener describes how a handful of companies in the United States has monopolized the business of food processing, causing economic, environmental and biological catastrophe along the way. Food, Inc. isn't hyperbolic, and isn't propaganda used by the likes of PETA to get folks to stop eating meat.


Food, Inc. focuses more on removing the veil that prevents consumers from knowing how large, powerful conglomerates mass produce food in a manner that may well be harmful to our society. The documentary is well done, and highly thought provoking.

One-Half

Since seeing Michael Moore's recent documentary on capitalism, I've been hyper observant regarding news stories that demonstrate the growing gap between economic classes.

Here's one that really caught my attention:

Half of the children in the United States will rely on food stamps at some point in their lives before the age of 20, USA Today reports, based on a study in the most recent Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Call Michael Moore's flick leftist drivel if you choose. People continue to suffer.

The Taking Of Pelham 123

Since his "Up your nose with a rubber hose" days as a Sweathog, I've been something-less-than-a-fan of John Travolta.

I was more an Epstein guy during the Kotter years, and the white suit in Saturday Night Fever was too tight for my comfort. My girlfriend enjoyed Grease, and my kids enjoyed Looks Who's Talking. I tolerated him in Pulp Fiction, despite the dance scene with Uma Thurman that was a total send-up of his career.

It's his voice, I think. It's a nasal, high pitch tone that doesn't go with his body, and it's delivered with a strange rhythm and unusual inflection that makes me tilt my head sideways and whine.

Simply put, too much Travolta in any given flick drive me bonkers.

I picked up The Taking Of Pelham 123 based solely on my admiration for Denzel Washington. I knew Travolta was the villain in this hostages-for-cash-smoke-'n-mirrors remake of the 1970s thriller. I didn't expect to like Travolta in the role, or even appreciate his acting.

...But I did. God help me, I liked the movie and I liked Travolta in his role.

Just don't ask me to watch Look Who's Talking Now.

Things I Miss On Saturday Morning: Part 15

Bruno

I first decided I wouldn't comment on Bruno until I figured out a way to discuss it without bringing up Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat, Bruno's older, wiser and--let's be honest, here--funnier cousin.

But, I just can't figure out a way to do that. Borat, Ali G and Bruno are as inter-connected and inseparable as Jon & Kate and their eight kids.

Mmm..probably not a good comparison.


Bruno works too hard for the laughs, and the character isn't likable. Borat had an innocence about him that was appealing, and even when he was over the top the audience was in on the satire Cohen was sending up.

But Bruno is simply a re-tread of the Borat story that's been dusted off, shaved clean and fitted with a new accent.

He's crass, ridiculous and absurd. Too bad he's just not very funny.

Capitalism: A Love Story

Capitalism: A Love Story is, in my opinion, filmmaker Michael Moore's best work. The documentary addresses how capitalism and the free enterprise system has caused the destruction of the middle class in the United States.

In typical Moore fashion, Capitalism shows the effect of his subject matter on real human beings. Americans are shown being forced from their homes, and experts explain how financial deregulation effected the credit of us who are not wealthy, and our ability to save. Interviewees discuss how the politics of economics seems to have been at play in most major decisions of the last 50 years. It's Moore's most personal film yet, and less satire and humor is used by Moore than in any of his previous films to illustrate points.

As a result, Capitalism is intimate, emotional and compelling.

Of particular interest to me was the expose Moore did on Corporate America's Dead Peasant insurance policy making. It was a topic of which I knew nothing, and I found the practice particularly greedy and evil.

I saw the film in Arlington, Virginia in a mall theater. It was packed, two weeks or more after the film was released. At the end of the flick, the audience applauded. Including me.

Michael Moore is a hero.

Paranormal Activity

Here's one of the reasons I know this movie is a success. After the flick ended, and as the audience filed out into the lobby, the young woman behind me said to her boyfriend:


"I have to go home and research what happened to Katie. Do you remember her last name?"

She thought Paranormal Activity was real. Or at least some aspects of it was real. Enough so that she cared about what happened to the character.




I've heard this movie be compared to The Blair Witch Project, based mostly in how the perspective is from the camera and the film is designed to look like a true story. But it's an unfair comparison.

The difference, to me at least, is that the audience watches the most intimate moments of a couple's lives during a 21 day period. We see them sleep together, play together, joke with each other and be frighted together. We see the couple fight, and we see them make up again. It's the intimacy that allows us to be frighted right along with them.

Quickly into the picture, we care about them; they're family.

That this movie is able to be (sort of) scary without blood, special effects or obvious monsters is a testament to how director Oren Peli develops the relationship between the audience and the characters on screen. Although I don't think the film is very scary, I do think it's more than entertaining.

And it's remarkable that's accomplished in the most minimal of ways.

Beauty's In The Eye Of The Survey

Huntington, WV's Herald-Dispatch reports the city has a new distinction: men living in the Mountain State's second largest city are some of the ugliest dudes in the United States.

Totalbeauty.com (a site I didn't know existed because, clearly, I'm one of those ugly dudes who doesn't think often about his looks) ranks Huntington as having the 5th ugliest population of men, tied with Mobile, Alabama.

By the way, I've been to Mobile. I have friends in Mobile. Huntingtonians are nowhere near as ugly as Mobilians.

Check out this picture of me (far right) and some friends, taken at my recent high school reunion, for proof!


Here's the Top Nine list put out by the beauty site. (I'm unsure why they came up with only nine):

No. 1: El Paso, Texas

No. 2: Hagerstown, Md.

No. 3: Miami

No. 4: Greensboro, N.C.

No. 5: Mobile, Ala. and Huntington (tie)

No. 6: Detroit

No. 7: Philadelphia

No. 8: Houston

Where's A. James Manchin when we need him?