Snakes on a Plane

OK, the upcoming movie Snakes on a Plane has officially become a pop culture event, months before its release. And I understand the appeal. The title says it all - Samuel L. Jackson said it was the reason he signed on, and when there was talk of changing it, the internet rose up in protest. It's become such a word of mouth phenomenon, Entertainment Weekly and others recently reported the production got more money out of the studio to make it that much more exciting and gross, in order to meet the raised expectations and get an R rating.

Why is this title so great? Snakes by their very nature stay as close to the ground as possible. There's something incongruous about such a creature flying thousands of feet above the Earth. They just don't belong.

Seeing as how I would love to make a movie that gets one-tenth the attention that this movie has already gotten in the press, I've been trying to come up with my own take on this concept. Here's what I've got so far:

Gophers on a Bus

An Octopus on my Head

Paris Hilton in a Movie

and my favorite...

U.S. Troops in Iraq

Do you have a better one? E-mail me.

Winding down

Wow. That was one hell of a week we just had.

So a friend of Phil's from Purdue, who I'd met once before, and her boyfriend, who I totally recognized but never figured out from where, drove down for SXSW. They crashed at our place from Tuesday to Sunday and it was a blast. A friend of Phil's friend happens to have moved to Austin a couple months ago, and she stayed with us a few nights too. On Saturday night, another friend of Phil's came up from San Antonio to hang out, and he stayed too. How we fit all these people in our living room I have no idea.

But now they're all gone, and I'm sitting here by myself and feeling lonely.

Come back soon, y'all.

Changing tastes

I just watched Sideways for the first time, while drinking a bottle of Solaz. I figured, if I was going to watch it, I might as well participate. This movie was very much in danger of drowning in critical praise last year, making it harder to enjoy on its own merits, but I did enjoy it, and the Solaz, a Spanish wine.

There's a scene in Sideways where the main character, played by Paul Giamatti, drinks wine out of a styrofoam cup. While never having done this myself, I did witness a similar scene my senior year of college, and it's still amusing. I never really drank wine much myself until the past year, since I get it free at work occasionally, and I've enjoyed it more than I expected.

One of my favorite wine-drinking memories goes back to 1997, when I spent a semester in Melbourne, Australia, on study abroad. For some reason still unknown to me, one of the women staying in my dorm, which catered to international students, meaning there were few Australians living there, invited me up to her room to drink a box of wine with her and a few other women staying there. Boxes of wine didn't carry quite the stigma there that they do, oh, pretty much everywhere else, and I was happy to join them. I don't remember what we talked about, but it was a fun time. It never happened again.

I have very occasionally picked up a bottle of wine since then, but that may change. I was having a conversation recently about taste, and we disagreed on one point. I've come around to the belief that taste changes dramatically as we get older. For instance, I rarely eat chocolate, specifically candy bars, anymore, but I loved them as a child. We always had candy in the cupboard when I was growing up, and I know I ate some every day. Not anymore. Maybe once a week on average, do I have anything chocolate other than milk. The way I see it, I've grown out of the taste for that kind of thing. In the same way, I believe we sometimes grow into a taste for something. For instance, alcohol.

When I was a kid, my father would sometimes give me a sip of beer, and I'm sure it amused him when I made a face and said it was gross. Needless to say, I no longer think beer is gross. I've grown into the taste for beer, wine, etc., some more than others. When I was young, my father never drank any other alcohol than beer, at least in my memory, but in the last ten years, he too has grown an appreciation for wine.

I don't think anybody's fooling themselves when they find a taste for alcohol as an adult. Tastes change. Just as kids who won't eat broccoli grow into adults who become vegan, I've found a taste for red wine, when time was I couldn't stand the stuff.

Drink up.

Getting Lost

In the last week, I watched the entire first season of Lost on dvd. I'd thought I stopped catching it consistently at about the halfway mark, but the fact was I'd seen all or most of every episode but the last four and one or two others. Makes me wish I'd kept up with it so I could've watched this season, but I figure they'll be releasing it on dvd soon after they air the season finale in May.

One thing that surprises me about watching it all at once like I did is how complex the characterization can be so quickly. One example would be Kate, the standout Canadian (both the character and actress). It's clear the writers want Kate to be a hero to the audience, and maybe they even consider her noble on some level, though I've yet to see much reason why. Personally, I find her more interesting as a villain, and I hope the show comes around on this point, because Evangeline Lilly is a fantastic actress, and behind her smiles I always detect a hint of deception.

And how ballsy was it to make Sayid ex-Republican Guard? Or Charlie a functioning heroin addict? This show definitely deserves the kudos directed its way.

Not down the drain.

Critters

We've never had a big roach problem here, but every once in a while I'll find a carcass the cat has picked over pinned underneath something - yoga mat, the cat's bed, a trash can. I hadn't seen a live one in months until last week, and then there was the one today.

We seal our open food packages in plastic ziploc bags to keep them fresh and the smell contained, and dirty dishes are either washed when we're done eating or go straight in the washer, and this has been effective. A couple weeks after we moved in, when I was still leaving my cat's food dish on the floor, I watched the biggest roach I had ever seen actually pick up a piece of her dry cat food and begin to carry it off before I killed it. That was disgusting.

The one in my shower when I got home today was about that size. I was pulling a wash cloth out to throw it in the laundry when I saw the thing, and being sporting, I grabbed the cat and gave her a chance at it, but she wasn't very interested and didn't like being in the shower, even with no water running. However, as soon as I put her in, the roach went for the drain, and the damn thing was so big it couldn't fit through the porous metal plate that covers it (see picture above - the quarter is to show you the size of the holes in the plate). And it was trying to squeeze through, believe me. It's little legs were scurrying but it couldn't fit more than its head through one of those holes.

Well, needless to say we won't be worrying about that particular roach anymore, but when I stomped it, there was some foul, utterly black substance that it left on the shower tiles that I don't think I'd ever seen before. And this before I ate supper. Anyway, that's my adventure for today.

Return to form

I just finished watching The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and I enjoyed it more than I expected to. The thing that made it so appealing was probably Bill Murray in the title role. For some reason, I expected his character from The Royal Tenenbaums (also directed by Wes Anderson) given a feature, but thankfully that wasn't the case. Instead, Steve Zissou is much more like the old Bill Murray persona most people remember so fondly from the 1980's and early 1990's, before he made a few bad choices and pretty much disappeared for a while. He's still living in Anderson's world, but he's recognizable again, and you can't help but laugh along with him. Props also to Willem Dafoe, who steals most of his scenes with a funny German accent and wounded pride.

Sweet charity

So I turned my computer on today and got a whiff of that old familiar smell, burning electronics. This time it was the (quite old) monitor I was using as my primary. My secondary is fine, so I'm just using it now.

The one that fried is one of four that I got for free from my last place of employment, when they replaced all the monitors. I took one for myself and gave three to my cousin. Shortly thereafter, the one I picked crapped out, so I asked Jim for one of the ones I gave him. That one worked for at least a year if I remember right, then green lines became visible scrolling down the screen, so I swapped that for one of the remaining two he had, since he didn't mind the lines, and he had I think four monitors at home at that point. I've been using it at least two years without a problem, until today.

By my count, that means he has one more of the monitors I gave him that still works correctly. Hmm....

Freedom vs. outrage

I recently got an email regarding the Muslim rioting in response to the cartoons depicting Mohammed as a terrorist. The writer asked my thoughts on why comparable depictions of Christ, or people like Kanye West comparing themselves to Christ, and the reactions of Christians are not cited in the media as being peaceful as opposed to the violence we are seeing now from Muslims, and also why images offensive to Christians are so tolerated in the first place. He claimed an NPR reporter had seemed to "condone" the rioting. I thought I'd publish some of my response here, as I hadn't really explored my thoughts on the subject before in writing. Ellipses signify an edit. This exchange happened last week, and his email was the first I'd heard of these events.

...I didn't hear the show you describe on NPR,
but the way you put it it sounds like you are
equating understanding with condoning.  This is
a common smear used by the right because it makes
them look uncompromising.  However, none but the
most radical leftist will say the violence being
perpetrated is justified and "right", i.e. they
condone it.  What many Democrats have said since
9/11 is that in order to fight the radical
elements of Islam (which are, as you note, a
small portion of all Muslims), we have to
understand how they think, what they want, and
what they are doing to achieve it.  If we
understand their tactics, we can develop counter-
tactics (some that do not involve violence, and
others that do-almost no one voted against the
invasion of Afghanistan, for example).  The major
critique of the Bush administration is that they
didn't bother to understand the enemy before they
began the attack, and they didn't pursue the non-
violent measures the way they should have.  Then
they tried to play catch up when things went south,
which predictably enough is not as effective and it
may be too late, in any case.

If you truly believe no one in the media is
pointing out some Muslims commonly react to outrage
with violence, you don't consume much media.  That
viewpoint is never more than a click away if that's
what you want to hear.  One reason it's not more
widespread is that it can be misused by people with
agendas to foment racism and violence here at home. 
For an example, see Hotel Rwanda.  When people with
a "public voice", as you put it, start putting
their own "people" above another "people", it has
in the past led to disaster, so it is avoided.... 

You identify the cover photo [of Kanye West on the
cover of Rolling Stone-ed.] as a satire of Jesus...
I'm not sure it meets the definition of satire,
since that implies an attack.  It sounds more like
West has a messiah complex and wants to be compared
to Jesus.  This may be silly and distasteful, but
why would he want to be identified with a figure he
didn't respect?  Does he equate his behavior to
Jesus's behavior, or just his suffering?...If we
were to agree showing disrespect to Jesus was
unacceptable, what should we do about it?  Lock up
the people making the depictions?  Who decides
what's disrespectful?  This is why we live under
separation of church and state.  The church gets to
decide what's disrespectful, and the state gets to
lock people up.  But one doesn't get to tell the
other what to do, and that allows us freedom of
religion.  Different churches find different things
disrespectful, but we all live together in relative
peace.

...For as long as there are people willing to be
offended by something, there will be people who
want to offend them, and some of what they do will
qualify as art, even to you and me.  But if [some]
hypothetical Christians took to throwing bombs at
Rolling Stone headquarters, you can bet it would
make the news, and some reporters would make it
their business to understand what these people
wanted and tell the rest of the world.  Pundits
would attack and defend them, just like they do
the Muslims....

Christians haven't always persecuted Muslims,
and Muslims haven't always persecuted Christians
...There have been periods of peace and periods
of war, not just because of religion either.  But
if you want to say Christians are inherently less
bloodthirsty than Muslims because of their
religion, you're ignoring your history.  The
difference between them stems from the fact that
the vast majority of Christian leaders decided to
ignore the justifications in the Bible for
violence (and they're there) and instead to preach
and teach the parts of the Bible that focus on
forgiveness and salvation.  The Muslim clergy have
not yet reached that point [of minimizing the
justification for violence-ed.], although they
were moving in that direction until the rise of
Wahhabism in the last century.

It may just be a matter of time until they catch
up in that respect, or they may regress.  We had
several hundred years' head start on them,
remember.  The world's a different place, and if
terrorism had been possible when the Inquisition
was going on, who's to say it wouldn't have spread
to England and France?  We're not as different as
we may seem based on the fanatics....

A whole new world

Just got back from watching The Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia, and color me impressed. This is one of the best fantasy films I've seen. Granted there aren't a whole lot of them, but this ranks up there with Lord of the Rings in terms of quality, if not kind. It's somewhat more whimsical, a little more kid-friendly, and part of it takes place in our world, but the story drew me in right off the bat and never lost me. No wonder this movie stole King Kong's crown. They also managed to shoot it in New Zealand and not make it look just like the LotR movies.