The Gospel According to Prisco

This was prompted by a question raised by everyone’s favorite Lucho, Manny of Hispanic! At the Disco.  He was asking about our complaints about our place of work.  I started to type my response and realized it would be poor form to leave that long a comment.  It’s not Pajiba! for godsakes.

Last week, I went to see my boss to tell him that since I’ve been with the company for a year and a half now, and since it’s recently become a priority, I would like to get a pay raise so that I could obtain health insurance for myself.  Because at my one year review, I was given a Burbank YMCA membership for myself and my girlfriend.  THAT’s my healthcare coverage.  Because he was only offering me $60 a month for healthcare.  90% of my lab tests covered?  $30 co-pay on doctor’s visits?  Nah, instead we give you wrinkly old man balls, and a permanent grundlefunk.  Enjoy!

Today, when he asked what was wrong with me, I explained how I’m having certain health concerns.  You know, that my blood pressure could potential stroke me into an Oprah watcher, or that I may have gallstones which are causing constant and excruitiating pain, or some other mystery ailment that they may discover inside me and name after me so that I can leave a legacy after I die in five fucking minutes from now.   But I don’t really know, because WebMD has its interactive limits, and I haven’t gotten far enough in Trauma Center: New Blood for the Wii.  Which is my current health care provider.

The conversation went as follows:
BOSS:  You have to get to the doctor.  Did you make an appointment?
ME: I can’t afford a doctor.  I can’t afford the testing.
BOSS:  You gotta get that looked at.
ME:  I’m going to the Glendale Health Center.  (blank stare)  You can’t get appointments.  (blank stare)  It’s a free clinic, boss.  I’m going to the free clinic.
BOSS:  Oh. 
ME:  It opens at 7:30 AM on Saturday.  So you go and wait in line until they can see you, and then they do some tests and then they give you an appointment for later in the day.  So I have to go and see.
BOSS:  So you’re getting it checked then.
ME:  Maybe.  There’s no guarantee.   Because they’re closing all the other clinics, because they don’t have funding.  So everyone’s getting funnelled to Glendale.  Hopefully not that many people are going.
BOSS:  Why are you going on Saturday?
ME: (interior monologue) Because you don’t give me sick days, like I fucking asked for, so if I take a day off of work, I have to make that time up, or else not get paid and I can’t afford to do that, just like I can’t afford to get tested at a proper doctor, you fucking pinhead.  (visualizing mauling his carotid artery with a tape dispenser)  Because it’s the only free day I have.
BOSS:  Well, that must have been why you were in such a hurry to get more money.  (stupid, retarded jackal laugh)
ME: Actually, no.  It’s gotten much worse since our conversation.
BOSS:  Well, surely, you can afford an HMO.  How much can that really be?
ME:  (interior monologue)  I don’t know.  What do you have the company pay for your health insurance, you cocksucking fuckface?  Is it more than free?  Cause that’s about what I can afford.  (sighs)  Well, most of the plans are running around $75 to $100 a month, but that’s with a really unreasonable deductible, so I’m shopping for better plans.  In the meanwhile, I’m trying not to die.
BOSS:  Well, look, take the time if you need it.  Seriously, you have to make sure to take care of this.  Your health is a priority.  Don’t let this shit go unchecked.  It’s important.
ME:  I know.  (interior monologue)  Because that’s exactly what I told you last week when I asked for a fucking raise, you needledicked fistfucker.
BOSS:  Let me know how it goes.  We’ll talk more about this soon.
ME:  We’ll talk about it next week.  Like we scheduled. 
BOSS:  Mmhmm. 
ME:  At least when I stab you with this sharpened ruler, I can tell how far it went into your chest cavity, you boil on the ass of Osama.  (interior monologue)  Shit, I think you said that one out loud.  GIMME MY FUCKING RAISE! 

And sometimes I wonder why my blood pressure is 176/116. 

I really enjoyed the first Cube, for what it was.  It was a neat, low-budget Canadian indie film, and it put forward a pretty interesting premise.  People trapped in some sort of interstellar/psychological prison, they have no idea how they got there, and the rooms have the potential to kill you with their traps.  Personally, I would have liked if they combined Hellraiser and Cube, that the Cube is actually the demon box that Pinhead desires.  Get on that Freddy vs. Jason hacks. 

I don’t know what the fuck happened with this.  I thought the budget was supposed to go up on the sequels.  Cube 2: Hypercube essentially is the same movie as the first one, except they took away all the intrigue, the gritty lighting and coloring, the general concept, and redid the same premise of the first movie, with a less interesting cast of characters, a lame ass unclever twist ending, and the special effects team from the guys who did the background on The Secret. Psychological introspection doesn’t translate to staring blankly and quoting introductory level quantum physics theories.  Oh, I guess it’s supposed to be cool that gravity and time bend differently in each cube room.  Except Fred Astaire learned how to do that in 1955, and he danced up the walls and across the ceiling of a hotel room.

And that my friends was Hypercool.  Avoid this movie like the plague. 

Our heroes inevitably fail us. 

Don’t latch yourself on to a film director for worship, because he will almost always let you down.  Dario Argento has been falling off towards the end of his career.  John Carpenter is too busy branding every piece of shit with his own name to even worry about quality, and after making Ghosts of Mars, I think he gets his horror lifetime pass permanently torn to fucking shreds.  Even Shakespeare wrote King John. 

If not responsible for the actual birth of the low-budget independent horror film, Tobe Hooper was one of the best in the game.  He gave us The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was the first horror film to actually get under my skin, not because of the buckets of blood or the jump-out-loud-noise-boo! that makes me leap like a scalded cat in the theatres, but because it was psychologically one of the most disturbing movies ever to happen.   Leatherface with a chainsaw is not the scary part of TCM.  It’s the withered old grandpappy at the dinner table trying to feebly brain a girl over a washbasin so they can kill and eat her.  It’s the casual way that it’s presented that fucks you up.  And depending on which camp you fall into, Hooper gave us Poltergeist.  And sure, he’s mostly spent his time reliving the glory of TCM, but it hasn’t been all bad. Right? Right?  I can forgive him for The Mangler, which was cheesy fun. 

Tear up his fucking card.  Or better yet, euthanise his ass.   Because if this is the best he can offer, he’s out.   I’m ashamed of this shoddy remake, with the worst killer in cinematic history (and I’m including The Tripper and his Ronald Reagan mask and woodsmans ax), and the most useless, dreary assortment of characters ever cobbled together.  It’s not just cliche ridden, it’s fucking boring. 

The Toolbox Murders is the story of the Lusman Arms, a former Hollywood hotel full of decadence and glory that has fallen into disrepair and ill-reputed legend.  A young new couple moves in and begins to hear mysterious sounds.  Suddenly, people start disappearing.  Actually, we get to see them butchered by some hooded handyman sporting powertools.  A nailgun, a powerdrill, a jigsaw, a hammer are all used to dispatch hapless victims, but it’s not nearly as much as fun as it sounds like.  And the murders are spread out on this thin dreadfully overlong plot where we play getting to know you with the cardboard cutout residents of the Lusman Arms.  It turns out that the architect possibly went to the same school of design as the dude who designed the Ghostbusters building that summons Zuul, which would totally be a movie I would be interested in seeing.  But instead of a Red Sonya knockoff in sparkly aerobics-wear, we’ve got somebody that looks like an extra from The Hills Have Eyes.  Not the bad older one either, but the new worser ones.  And so it’s up to them to destroy the…zzzzz, snore.  Thump.

I was disappointed that his name was associated with this crap.  It’s totally selling all of the street cred he’s built.   But I am willing to give him one more chance.   He’s signed on to direct the adaptation of Stephen King’s From a Buick 8.  I was one of the few people to really enjoy that book.  Because I looked at it as an old man’s book.  Christine was king’s flash teenage car story, but From a Buick 8 was the old man’s version.  Instead of the car swerving around killing people, it’s been imprisoned in a garage, and people sit around telling war stories about it.  It’s the Beowulf of killer cars.  So from that aspect, I believe Hooper can do a pretty decent job of it.  And at this rate, he’d better.

Holly Black loves fairies like people love to hate on Diablo Cody now that she’s won an Oscar.  She was responsible for my first foray into teen fiction, the pretty decent Tithe, and a book which prompted me to present my evaluation of the literary section as such to wondering parents: “Well, it’s got a lot of swearing and sex, but no more so than your average eighth grade school day.”  So when she teamed up with Tony DiTerlizzi, who’s former work I am not familiar with, I was a bit nervous.  SHE’s doing a kids novel? 

But these adorable little books were made, and no foaming-mouthed parents stormed back into Barnes and Noble, so I figured they were safe.  When I heard Nickelodeon had bought up the rights, I got a little mouth vomitty.  But, then I saw the trailer and thought, there may yet be hope.

The Spiderwick Chronicles tells the story of three children: a fencing champion daughter and two twin boys, both played by Freddy Highmore (obviously pre-August Rush), one brooding and troubled and the other a bookish nerd.  They begrudgingly follow their newly-divorced mother from the hustle and bustle of New York to a mansion in the middle of nowhere that was long abandoned by their crazy-great aunt.  Mysterious sounds start to unsettle the trouble boy, Jared, who ends up smashing holes in walls while trying to stop whatever’s scratching behind.  He ends up discovering a hidden attic laboratory, and in there a field guide of the faerie world by Arthur Spiderwick, his great-great-uncle.  What follows is the children’s attempts to defend their home and the field guide from marauding goblin hordes working for the evil ogre, Mulgurath (Nick Nolte), who wants the book so he can kill all the other faerie creatures.

This was a spectacular movie.  The goblins, instead of being giant gremlinesque critters, are instead these fat, toads that scamper along like tubby gorillas, which somehow make them more horrifying.  The faerie world can only be seen through a special seeing stone, or if a hobgoblin (voiced by Seth Rogen, thereby completing his contract that he appear at least once in a movie every month from here to eternity) spits on their eyes.  This caveat makes for some exciting action, while some people can’t see the impending peril, and others can and try to warn them.  It does a wonderful job of exploring the world of fantasy, how it tends to be the realm of the children, and everyone else thinks these people are crazy. 

It’s a pretty intense movie, and essentially pretty violent for a kid’s flick.  Something on the par of Gremlins, not necessarily getting zit-popped in a microwave or pureed in a blender, but there is some exploding stove action, and plenty of scratching and biting and stabbing.  It’s a gooey movie, with green snot-like blood spurting out of wounds and splattering around.  Also, tomato sauce and vinegar are like acid to these creatures, so there’s plenty of splattery wounds corpsing up the monsters.  If I said it once, I’ve said it a million times, it’s good to be a Roman Catholic.  We’re safe from vampires, demons, and now goblins.  Now who’s laughing, Martin Luther?

I’m really pleased that Nickelodeon respected children enough to keep the action intense and truthful.  Freddy even spouts out a “What the hell?”.  This isn’t a movie for children under 8, perhaps, but it’s for those kids who aren’t ready for PG-13.  It hearkens back to the days when we were kids and got to see Raiders of the Lost Ark with all it’s face melting action, or Luke get his hand chopped off with a lightsaber in Empire Strikes Back, or even the foul mouth of Chunk in The Goonies.  This actually felt like it was the baby of Goonies and possibly that other perennial favorite Monster Squad.  I’m glad to see them not pandering to oversafe parents and to the baby crowd.  Good for them.  And the action and pacing are good enough to even keep an adult’s interest.

The only fault I would have the movie is it’s more saccharine safe ending.  Teeth were rotting in my head, but that was mostly because I don’t have dental care.  The sentimentality plays, but at touches it gets a little overly much.  But it’s a family film, so it’s hard to begrudge it that.  The cast is superb, with Mary Louise-Parker taking off from dealing to do a decent job as the overwhelmed mother, David Strathairn as Arthur Spiderwick putting in another solid performance, and Joan Plowright awesome as always.  I didn’t recognize Seth Rogen’s voice as Hogsqueal, but he does a decent job.  Nick Nolte is spectacular as the grizzled Mulgurath.  But I think for the critters, the hat tip goes to Martin Short.  I don’t know what happened to him, but he’s a good actor, and I really hope he starts to pop up in better projects.  I couldn’t remember where I’d seen Sarah Bolger, the girl who plays Mallory before, but she was the daughter from In America who killed me with her rendition of Desperado.  She’s good, she’ll be in more stuff, probably not as much as Annasophia Robb or Dakota Fanning, but you’ll definitely see her again.  And Freddy Highmore, well, by now I would have thought to have had my fill, but he’s just a good actor.  It’s tough to buy him as the troublemaker, but that part quickly devolves into more curious.  He’s particularly impressive as the bookish kid, not because he’s a soft boy, but because that kid starts to snap by the end of the film, and his emotional range is pretty impressive. 

All in all, think hard about bringing your little little ones to this movie, but it’s really a great flick.  I will now have to snatch up the tiny tomes and read them for myself.  Though I get word from my first grade teacher brother that there are even better things on the horizon as far as kid lit.

I am not punk rock.  I am not my fucking khakis either.  But I while alternative/punk is probably the best way to describe my musical tastes, I dare not call myself punk rock.  I’ve got mosh pit scars on my elbows and knees, and I’ve protected my number of female friends from the flying Doc Martens of some fifteen year old day-glo’d mohawk doing suicidals at a show.  I’ve seen NoFX live more times than any other band, and the only live concerts I’ve seen weren’t punk were Ben Folds Five and Britney Spears & N*SYNC.  (Shut up, my cousin was 12 and she wanted to go, and it was at Hershey Park, and there’s candy and roller coasters and this was back when Britney was still fuckable — desirablely so, not in the sense like now, where you actually have a chance to probably fuck her if you take her picture first and offer her some blow — and we were being nice and, and, shut up, I don’t have to defend myself to you!) 

But I never wore safety pins through my clothes.  I never sported crazy colored hair, or shaved it on the sides for a fauxhawk or a goth kids style.  I never wore leather jackets with band patches.  I never wore band patches.  The only pair of black boots I own are steel toed, because the T got CROWDED during the weekends and I didn’t want my feet getting stomped.  I own two band T-shirts, one for NoFX and the other for the Reel Big Fish/Goldfinger tour.  I didn’t get political on anyone, or try to instigate revolution, or to even give the finger to authority.  I don’t suffer fools, and I don’t take shit, but I would never dare call myself punk.  Mostly because authentic punks tend to be assholes.  They tend to be so wrapped up in “being punk” that it gets off putting.  As much as they claim to be nonconformist, punk tends to be almost as aggressively social as any other clique, if not more so.  If you aren’t bleeding from a crowd surf punt to the dome or have a black eye from a mosh circle brawl, you aren’t real to the scene, man.  It never surprised me that it was fronted by bands called the Buzzcocks and the Circle Jerks.  Both seemed to apply.  I long ago shook hands and stood to the side, deciding to become an unoffical member of the Fat Old Guy Mosh Pit Crew, and saving my lady friends from the frustrations of teenagers three chords away from going on school shootings.  (Of course, there are plenty of punk kids that are welcoming and lovely, and yes, I am demonizing and stereotyping and oversimplifying, but fuck it.  If you’re so punk rock, why do you care what I have to say?)

By avoiding the whole scene and attitude associated with the music, I was able to appreciate almost all of it without feeling like some sort of poseur.  I was assembling a playlist for a workout, deciding to forego the techno/hip-hop/world music that tends to be most workouts for a more punk rock playlist that’s the kind of music that gets me pogoing like a spazzo.  Going off my limited selection, I managed to make a list that was damn near 4 and 1/2 hours long.  And since it was punk rock, it was about 1 billion songs with four chords between them.

But I found that my list could be broken down into four seperate subgenres of punk.  And so I broke it down into: bouncy ska punk, old school punk, new school punk, and then what I just called rock.  Of course, not all of the bands are punk, not punk at all, I was just trying to blend together songs that I enjoy.  These lists are works in progress, but I’m pretty proud of what I’ve assembled.  Again, I was bored with my iPod last night, so I was just cutting and pasting from my limited selection.  For your scorn and critcism, I present, the Punk Rock Workouts:

BOUNCY SKA
Blur — Song 2
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes — Runaway
The Vandals — My Girlfriend’s Dead
Pennywise — Punk Rock Song
Reel Big Fish — Sell Out
Flogging Molly – Drunken Lullabies
The Fratellis — Flathead
Gogol Bordello — Think Locally Fuck Globally
Goldfinger — Mable
The Offspring — Come Out And Play
Rancid – Ruby Soho
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes — Danny’s Song
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones — Devil’s Night Out
Green Day — Platypus (I Hate You)
Less Than Jake – One Last Cigarette
Suicide Machines – High Anxiety
Green Day — J.A.R. (Jason Andrew Relva)
Mad Caddies — Booze Cruise
The Pietasters – Out All Night
Pennywise — Fight Till You Die
Less Than Jake — Sugar In Your Gas Tank
Flogging Molly — Devil’s Dance Floor
Goldfinger — Nothing to Prove
The Offspring — The Kids Aren’t All Right
Less Than Jake — Automatic
Suicide Machines — No Friends
Mad Caddies — Villains
Gogol Bordello — Immigrant Punk

As you can begin to see, I have an unhealthy obsession with Irish-style violins, and brassy horn sections.  Gogol Bordello just made the cut, whereas I felt the Pogues were a little too slow for my workout.  There could easily be more Reel Big Fish on here, and some Bosstones, but I was more interested in the fast guitar and anthemic stuff.  For me, ska dances the fence between the new school “bouncy and safe” and the old school “violent and resilient”.  Old school punk is more like Rocky Balboa, it’s not flashy, it’s lasting and tough.  So this list is bouncy ska, like a boxer bouncing on his toes before he kicks your ass.  

NEW SCHOOL PUNK
Green Day – I Fought The Law
Rise Against — Dancing for Rain
Fall Out Boy — Sugar, We’re Going Down
Nerf Herder — Pantera Fans in Love
Story of the Year — Until the Day I Die
Sugarcult — Memory
Social Distortion — Story of My Life
Nerf Herder — Led Zepplin Rules
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes — Goodbye Earl
Fall Out Boy — Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things To Do Today
Brand New — Seventy Times 7
Alkaline Trio — Armageddon
Gob — Give Up The Grudge
Green Day — Holiday
The Loved Ones — Suture Self
Bear vs. Shark — Busses/No Busses
Fall Out Boy — Sending Postcards from a Planecrash
A New Found Glory — My Friends Over You
Nerf Herder — Cashmere
Yellowcard — Believe
Dropkick Murphies — Forever

Okay, first of all I know I have a lot of fucking nerve putting the Dropkick Murphies and Social Distortion in the same category as Fall Out Boy and New Found Glory, let alone labelling it New School Punk, but here me out.  This is essentially the skateboarding videogame soundtrack.  The only reason Less Than Jake and Pennywise aren’t here is because I’m putting the scarred horns on the ska list.  I love new school punk for a completely different reason that the old school.  Punk-pop is fun music, it’s not dangerous; that’s as laughable as Ashlee Simpson doing a song about what a rebel she is.  Or it’s actually just as laughable as Ashlee Simpson.  There are plenty of interchangeable bands here: A Simple Plan or more New Found Glory could easily replace most of the one-offs.  There’s a definite place for some newer Offspring or even Good Charlotte, but I don’t really own much of their music.  I left Panic! At the Disco off the list for the same reason The Pogues aren’t on the bouncy ska; I feel like they’re just that side of pop, even though they sound EXACTLY the same as Fall Out Boy.  There’s a ton of Fall Out Boy, but it’s mostly the older stuff, before they hit it big.  I just started listening to The Loved Ones (my album review will be up later this week).  And I know I kind of bitched out on the Rise Against song, but I love that song. 

OLD SCHOOL PUNK

NOFX — Linoleum
Social Distortion — Angels Wings
The Buzzcocks — What Do I Get
The Replacements — Bastards of Young
The Dead Milkmen — Punk Rock Girl
The Ramones — Judy Is A Punk
NOFX — Louise
The Clash — Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Black Flag — Rise Above
The Ramones — I Wanna Be Sedated
Suicidal Tendencies — Institutionalized
Social Distortion — Highway 101
NOFX — Kill Rock Stars
Iggy and the Stooges – Search and Destroy
Butthole Surfers — Too Drunk to Fuck
NOFX — Jaundiced Eye
The Misfits — Last Caress
Pansy Division — Deep Water
NOFX — 13 Stitches
The Descendants — Schizophrenia
Black Flag — Drinking and Driving
Dropkick Murphys — Pipebomb on Lansdowne
Fishbone — Party at Ground Zero

Yeah, I know, could I possibly pick more obvious songs.  Why didn’t I just slap fucking ”Rock the Casbah” or “Blitzkrieg Bop” on there, and complete the Rhino Records Old Punk Hitz! Vol 1.  It’s a little NOFX heavy, because I own a lot of NOFX.  And I put the grandfathers of ska at the end of this list because it’s a good phase down.  With this list, I know I have all the right bands, and most of the right songs, I probably can do better.  Social Distortion is difficult to find songs that are rhythmic enough to be on a workout collection.  As fast as most punk bands play, there’s definitely a slowed down rock aspect to them.  It’s like Dropkick Murphys.  Which song works for a workout?  I put Forever on the New School because it’s that sweeping inspirational, but it doesn’t fit in with the other dirty facepunches that is the rest of his.  I had a hell of a time picking the right Descendants song, because I don’t own many of their albums.  I almost put Nothing With You, but that would go on the New School side.  But there’s at least a story to be told here.  Sure it’s Natural Born Killers, but it’s still a fun fucking ride.  Look down the titles again, and figure out where I went with this.  But of all my lists, this is the one I think needs the most work.

ROCKING OUT WITH YOUR SWEAT SOCK OUT

The Reverend Horton Heat — Psychobilly Freakout
Rodrigo y Gabriela — Tamacun
The Red Elvises — Love Pipe
Ween — It’s Gonna Be a Long Night
The Hives — Hate to Say I Told You So
Three Days Grace — Animal I Have Become
Iggy Pop — I Am a Passenger
Toad the Wet Sprocket — Fall Down
The Vines — Get Free
Nickelback — Animals
Sum 41 — Still Waiting
My Chemical Romance — Bury Me In Black
Tito and Tarantula — Caraches Anjodes
Dragonforce — Through the Fire and the Flames
Red Hot Chili Peppers — Higher Ground
Bad Religion — Infected
Smashing Pumpkins — Zero
Tito and Tarantula — Dark Night
The Who — Baba O’Reilly

This truly shows you the insane skimmer that is my brain.  I mean, this list jumps all over the fucking place.  And I know people are going to try to claim my taste status with some of my choices.   Yeah, there are plenty of songs that rock harder.  I could have gone 80’s on a lot of this.  But this has got a nice rockabilly vibe to it, with some interesting guitar riffs peppered throughout.  You have no idea how bad I wanted to put some Primus on this bitch.  I just couldn’t find the right song to put in there.  Wynnona’s Got A Big Brown Beaver, or My Name Is Mudd.  But neither felt right.  There are two songs off the From Dusk Til Dawn soundtrack which I think I balanced nicely with the Rodrigo y Gabriela song at the front along with Reverend Horton Heat.  Rodrigo y Gabriela blow my fucking mind.  They are fast flamenco style guitar, and it is awesome.  And it may seem like that blown mind would be responsible for what could be deemed a lag in the center of the playlist.  Yes, you bet your ass I put a Toad the Wet Sprocket song on the rock list.  It was almost Flood by Jars of Clay.  I like my playlists for the workout to go in peaks and waves.   I just think there’s a rule somewhere that Baba O’Reilly has to be on the beginning or the end of every playlist that has the word rock in it. 

I also made a 2 or 3 hour playlist I called Techno-cality.  Because I’m clever and I love puns.  Also, because it is a fucking high school yearbook of eighties and nineties techno.  It’s got some Atari Teenage Riot, Gravity Kills, hell, even a little Zombie Nation and My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult.  I was a whisper away from slapping some Sneaker Pimps “Six Underground” up on that monster.  But that would be out of control.  I will spare you the details. 

Hopefully my punk workouts work out.  I’ve been at the gym a while now, and doing a cardio workout that runs just over an hour.  So hopefully this will get all four cheeks and a couple chins bouncing like a mufackus.  And eventually bounce them right off my jiggly ass. 

Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh

This was a much better read than The Temple and the Lodge, at least for me.  While crossing over the same territory, it managed to present it in a much more engaging and linear format.  The concept was essentially their attempts to trace the Merovingian bloodline and resolve issues of the Holy Grail. For those who have been under a rock for the past five years or so, or who could really care less, they basically come up with the proposal that the Holy Grail is actually a bloodline tracing back to Jesus, who was probably married to Mary Magdalene, and has been around for millenium.  Having read the Da Vinci Code, which was allegedly lifted from the concepts these guys first put forth, the reveal was not the surprise that it probably had originally been when the book first came out.  I remember flipping out from what I read in Da Vinci.  Who didn’t immediately run to a painting of the Last Supper and check out all the clues?  I think the pop culture reveal is a much more palatable way of introducing this concept.  However, the intrigue of this book isn’t so much the what as the how.  Because there’s a lot more to it that you don’t even know.

The entire time, the researchers basically say they didn’t expect to find this out.  They just traced it back.  They could hardly believe it themselves.  It’s not necessarily fact.  It’s got strong evidence, but it could always be refuted.  I think that’s important, to at least offer that caveat up as a shield to the religious fanatics waving burned books screaming “Heretic!”

And is it really that awful that Jesus was married?  Mary Magdalene gets shit on a lot, to the point where in the Bible, she’s referred to as a whore, when she might very well have actually been a wealthy man’s daughter.  In fact, what HBHG goes on to propose, is that Lazarus might have been Jesus’ brother-in-law, and Mary Magdalene the sister of Lazarus.

Where the book gets strange is the conspiracy theorist aspect of its proposal.  That their was a group behind all the dealings of the Templars called The Priory of Sion.  As in Zion, as in the Protocols of Zion, as in the five Jew bankers who control the world from a spaceship orbiting the earth.  What’s funny is, they’ve discovered that the Protocols of Zion might have been written as a satirical piece, intended as a joke and taken entirely the wrong way.  The Priory of Sion has been around for almost a millenium, and it’s basically been in the background of many of society’s advances.  It’s supposedly still active today, and in a seat of power.  Supposedly the Priory is linked to the Merovingian bloodline, which is supposedly Jesus’ bloodline.  So in effect, members of this family can claim royal lineage. 

The most controversial topic it breeches is that the crucifixition might have been staged.  That instead of having magical powers, Jesus was sort of a magician with amazing charisma and a wonderful message.  And so the crucifixion was possibly a staged event so that he could avoid further persecution and to deliver his messages of being the Messiah.  Now, I don’t know if that’s true.  They put forward a strong argument, that a lot of the logic of the story is flawed in relation to actual history.  And frankly, I’m fine if it was faked.  It doesn’t change the message.  Much of which was derived from Eastern religious thought. 

The argument doesn’t offend me.  It means that for political reasons, Jesus had to go into hiding.  Which when you look at many of our greatest leader’s rather untimely demises makes perfect sense.  In the past century, we’ve already put bullets in some of the sharpest and noblest minds.  Is that any different than crucifixion?  Jesus spread a powerful message, and whether or not he was the son of God or if he died for our sins or if the stories they told about him are true doesn’t change that.  I think people often get so confused with following tradition they forget to follow common sense.  Technically, Christianity is an amalgamation of concepts from many different faiths.  I think people get so wrapped up in what’s moral and what’s biblical, they forget to just accept what’s right. 

The Bible is a bunch of stories.  It’s an interpretation.  Some of the different authors were biased by history, or their stories were changed for political reasons by the Church.  It’s a shame that religion and politics have both turned into corporations that are fostering for their own good as opposed to just spreading a message of love and hope. 

I’ve been told that if this got to me, when I read Rule By Secrecy, which is a little more conspiracy theorist, my mind will be blown.  I’m looking forward to that.

Because I run an international bi-coastal drug ring, for posterity’s purposes, I am required by Talmudic law to post my selections for the Oscars.  For the first time, in I believe EVER, I am actually pretty pleasantly surprised by the selections for the categories.  There were of course ones that set me off (Johnny Depp?  For reals?) but for the most part, everything was justified.  It was actually a great year for movies.

So here are my picks for tonight’s MPAA Final Twenty Four.  Because I’m a mouthy tool, I will list who I’ve selected to win, followed by who I’d like to see win.  Gentlemen, place your wagers!

BEST LEADING ACTOR

I Chose: Daniel-Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood 

Who Should Win: Daniel-Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood

The man just owned this film.  He lifted it on his angry Irish shoulders and hoisted that bastard straight through it’s entire 2 hour plus runtime, barreling aside anyone in his way.  Higginbottom and I agree that if by some cosmic fuckup he is not selected, he should storm onstage, and beat the other actor to death with the golden statue. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

I Chose: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men

Who Should Win: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men

I was nervous, thinking these two would have to face off in the Lead Actor category, but then I forgot that the Oscars are as political as a PTA meeting in Brentwood.  So, they stayed out each other’s way.  And in a year that has a staggeringly, staggeringly good amount of performance for supporting males this year, Javier killed everyone in his path.  Though I really would have like to see these two fight each other onstage.  Maybe they’ll pull a Rainn Wilson/Philip Seymour Hoffman wrassling match.

BEST LEAD ACTRESS 

I Chose: Julie Christie, Away From Her

Who Should Win: Laura Linney, The Savages 

This was the one category where I hadn’t seen as many of the films.  And as much as I love Ellen Page with the fire of a thousand suns, I just think she’s not earned her credit yet.  She’s going to win something, some day.  But Laura Linney really deserves an Oscar.  And she was very good in The Savages.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

I Chose: Ruby Dee, American Gangster 

Who Should Win: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone 

Cate Blanchett was a stunt performance; Tilda Swinton was amazing…as Tilda Swinton, the role she plays in every movie; Saoirse Ronan was good, but ask the little girl from Little Miss Sunshine how much we thank heaven for you; and Amy Ryan has been awesome in just about every goddamn thing she’s been in this year.  But she’s so good, people forget what movies she’s been in.  So Ruby Dee wins.  Because she’s an old black lady.  And the Oscars love white guilt.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

I Chose: Ratatouille 

Who Should Win: Ratatouille 

Fuck your stupid kids who didn’t like this.  Pixar didn’t make it for them.  They made it for me.  And I loved this movie.  Although Persepolis was stylistically much cooler, it just couldn’t even come close to hanging with this film.

ART DIRECTION

I Chose: Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Who Should Win: Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 

But it’ll probably go to There Will Be Blood or Atonement, because the Oscar folk love to vote in batches.  It helps them not to think.  The best part, the only good part of Sweeney Todd was the visuals.  It was staggering.  It actually made the movie watchable.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

I Chose: There Will Be Blood

Who Should Win: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 

Everyone marvels at Paul Thomas Anderson and his ability to frame a long shot.  And it’s true, between him and the Coens, they’ve both made landscape paintings of the American Southwest.  But honest to God, Julian Schnabel’s camera dude actually captured what it looks like to be paralyzed and only see from one eye.  It was fucking haunting.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

I Chose: Atonement

Who Should Win: La Vie En Rose 

Oscar voters love foreign films like white people love Toyota Prui-ui.  Especially British ones.  And in this category, I really could care less this year.

BEST DIRECTOR

I Chose: Ethan and Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men

Who Should Win: Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Tonight will be a fight between No Country and Blood.  But again, Julian Schnabel did things with this movie that I can’t believe are possible.   Using static shots, point of view, and the most effective narration I’ve ever known, he created ART.  Nobody has seen this film, and few will.  But if it was strong enough, as a foreign film, to stand out of the actual foreign film category, you know it’s gotta be great.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

I Chose: Sicko

Who Should Win: King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters 

Yeah, it wasn’t nominated, and Taxi to the Dark Side will probably win.  They packed this category full of anti-Iraq films, and so Michael Moore stands alone.  And Sicko actually made me really furious at the state of healthcare in this country.  It’s definitely biased, and probably inaccurate, but it’s still gall-inducing.  It made me stand up and pay attention to the election.  Because I am pissed, FURIOUS, that we don’t have some sort of healthcare initiative in America.  And it’s all this pudgy hack’s fault.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

I Chose: Sari’s Mother

Who Should Win:  ?

Like the rest of the Academy, I haven’t seen any of the short features.  So I just choose based on a whim.  Or because the title makes me giggle.  Mother = good.

BEST FILM EDITING

I Chose: No Country for Old Men

Who Should Win: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 

I’d love to see a Coen sweep, though it’ll probably be There Will Be Blood.  And do I need to gush anymore about Diving Bell?  I do not.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

I Chose: The Counterfeiters

Who Should Win: Lust, Caution; Persepolis; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days and The Kite Runner 

This is one of the categories where I am fucking flummoxed.  It was as if they said, well, if I saw it over in America, it can’t be foreign.  They essentially filled this with random shit, and some film nobody cares about will win, because that’s just how we roll.  Hollywood is so elitist, they actually have to choose foreign films even foreign people haven’t seen.  I picked Counterfeiters, because it was the only one I heard about, and I wanted to see it, and it’s about World War II.  And as Spielberg can attest, the old crowd of Oscar voters loves them some concentration camp stories.

BEST MAKEUP

I Chose: Norbit

Who Should Win: Anyone else.

I threw up a little in my mouth at this.  But frankly, the Oscars love controversy and stirring shit up.  They have to sit through these 4 hours when they could be drinking.  It’s like a particularly long Catholic wedding.  You want booze.  So you need to amuse yourself.  You do crazy shit.  That’s how the worst crime against America gets nominated and praised.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

I Chose: Atonement

Who Should Win: Into the Wild

I’m banking on the whole we’ll just give it to Atonement where there’s no Country vs. Blood fiasco mentality of the Academy.  I honestly didn’t hear a score that impressed me this year moreso that what Eddie Vedder did with Into the Wild.  He perfectly captured the damn nature-loving adventure of the movie.  But because he was in Pearl Jam, you know, fuck him.  Well, There Will Be Blood’s actually irritated me.  Everyone was lauding Jonny Greenwood.  But as I said in my review, it sounded like he got high and tried to hump a theramin.

ORIGINAL SONG

I Chose: “Falling Slowly”, Once

Who Should Win: “Falling Slowly”, Once

The August Rush song is cute and all, but nobody cared about that movie.  ”So Close” must have been a mistake, that never should have been nominated.  It’s an AWFUL, AWFUL song.  It’s spot should have gone to Eddie Vedder.  Who doesn’t deserve to win either.   That leaves the two wonderful songs from Enchanted.  And since nobody will be able to choose between the two of them: either the Snow White dance number with roaches and pidgeons cleaning a house, or the huge dance number in Central Park, then you get the winner who should win, Once.  In an adorable movie, this moment, this song, was so powerful and sweet and captured everything about the movie, it deserves to win.  And I LOVED Once.

BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR

I Chose: No Country for Old Men 

Who Should Win: Juno

As has been wisely pointed out on Pajiba!, Juno is going to now suffer, and is beginning to suffer, a painful hipness backlash.  Which makes me sad.  Because it was such a perfect, awesome movie.  Everyone rooted for it, but then when it became bigger than life, everyone started shunning it.  It suffered the hipster shun, being hissed at from behind geek-specs and tight sweaters.  Which is really sad.  But aside from, sigh, Atonement, everyone deserves to be here.  I just think No Country is a more palatable film.  Though There Will Be Blood will probably win because its so dark and dramatic, the audiences will assume they’re supposed to like it.  And No Country will suffer the same Coen backlash they always see.  Be like Spielberg, guys.  Make a movie about a concentration camp.  Then they’ll vote for you!

BEST SHORT FILM — ANIMATED

I Chose: I Met the Walrus

Who Should Win: ?

Didn’t see any.  It’s about a kid meeting John Lennon.  Beatles = votes.

BEST SHORT FILM — LIVE ACTION

I Chose: The Mozart of Pickpockets 

Who Should Win: Yeast

Didn’t see anything. I liked the title.  Also I had to give a shout out to my friend’s film, which is playing at SXSW next month.  Oscars 2009?

BEST SOUND EDITING/BEST SOUND MIXING

I Chose: No Country for Old Men

Who Should Win: Television viewers.

This is always the point of the night where they let the comedy SHINE, because nobody can care less.  Sound is a key element of film, but they are the drummers of the film world.  And nobody likes Drummers (take that Wexler, inevitable winner of this years pool!).  So it’ll probably go to No Country in a vast sweep.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

I Chose: Transformers

Who Should Win: Beowulf 

Beowulf should have been represented this year.  And Transformers was awesome, but big shiny robots aren’t that impressive in big shiny closeup.  It’ll probably go to Pirates, because apparently Johnny Depp could take a shit on camera for two hours and people would be TiVoing that like Jesus’s return speech.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

I Chose: No Country for Old Men

Who Should Win: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

I’m ashamed to say, I’m totally befuddled as to who to pick for screenplays this year.  The Coens did great stuff with No Country.  Diving Bell was transcedant.  I think Blood will sweep this year, and I chose with my heart, as a true asshole.  Atonement will probably snatch this up, because the source material was stronger.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

I Chose: Juno 

Who Should Win: Lars and the Real Girl

I loved Juno so much I wanted to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant.  It is my favorite movie of this year, hands down.  But Lars and the Real Girl is a brilliant, unbelievably good script.  It dances such a desperate and dangerous line between hokey and heartbreaking.  That’s tight stunning writing.  Johnny Depp needs to apologize to Ryan Gosling for taking his spot on the Lead Actor category.  Right after apologizing to Josh Brolin for cockblocking him also.  But Juno will win, because everyone wants to hear what Diablo Cody will say, which will no doubt be torn apart on the Interwebs tomorrow.  Lord knows, I might even tear into it.  

Upon the recommendation of Ms. Bend the Round, I decided to watch Black Sheep.  I like cheesy horror, and this movie had intrigued me with its ridiculous premise: Australian sheep go biologically berserker, turn into flesh craving monsters, and attack a group of hapless twentysomethings.  Surely, despite my aversion to the Aussie accent, this would be a silly, hilarious gorefest. 

Well, with all apologies to Meat Loaf, two out of three is very, very, very bad.

I think I have been despoiled by Dead Alive.  Peter Jackson has pretty much rocked the retardo-horror genre.  That over the top gorefest where you’re cringing with disgust one minute and laughing with disgust at the next.  I think he’s been much imitated but never successfully. 

This movie is a scant 87 minutes long, but it takes 20 to set up its awful, awful premise.  The characters are unlikable.  They are stereotypes blown out to awful proportions.  I’m pretty sure it was the “love interest” that disgusted me the most.  She was a hippie, ultra-ecoterrorist vegetarian.  I think I just hate people like that.  I want to eat them, and make them sing folk songs as they die.

Sure, I got a couple of laughs, and, with a nod to Beckylooo, this would probably have been a great movie to watch while under the influence of several adult beverages, but I wasn’t, and it wasn’t.  The sheep going nuts is really, really crazy.  And while it’s good for a laugh the first time, it gets old.  And the whole were-sheep concept, as in being bitten turns you into killer sheep, that I didn’t like.  It was just too stupid.  If the sheep were just maniac and went on a killing spree, I would have totally been down.  But the people started mutating into sheep creatures, and that was a little too lame for my tastes.  I don’t mind a thin plot, but it was as if they filmed the sheep killing people, and then tacked on a storyline after the fact.   The gore was ramped up to the extreme, and I do like that, but again, after the splatterorgasm that was Dead Alive, it was ho-hum. 

I actually had started to watch this, got bored and turned it off, and then started to watch it again later.  If I weren’t home and violently ill, I don’t think I would have bothered to get through the entire thing.  It wasn’t nearly as disappointing as Undead or Dead and Breakfast.  Or as much as redux of The Toolbox Murders is becoming.   But for my money, I’m probably going to have to push Slither to the forefront of the queue.  I hear that’s more in line with the badassery that I expected from this.

Knowing about films like Rififi is one of the few reasons I liked film school.  It actually really opened up my filmic library.  But it’s like they say in Good Will Hunting, “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library. “  Or in my case, the video store or Netflix. 

What is Rififi?  It’s a black and white French film from 1955 that to me is the granddaddy of all heist films.  They’re been quite a great number of movies in this subgenre, but they tend to gun or tech them up these days.  I mean, the much lampooned — but still pretty awesome when you first saw it — scene in Mission: Impossible where Tom Cruise breaks into the supercomputer and blah blah files.  Or the entire insanity that is Oceans Eleven (The new one, not the old one.  The old one was cool because it was the Rat Pack drunk in front of cameras being all hep cat lounge.  Otherwise, it was essentially Cannonball Run). Well, any sort of complicated robbery scheme or any scene you see where a bunch of smooth criminals break into a vault of some sort is birthed from this solid noir flick. 

Rififi is the story of career criminals about to go for that “one last big job”.  Tony just got out of prison, a five year stretch for robbery because he didn’t rat out his pals.  Tony’s gal has taken up with a hustler who runs a nightclub, and he’s pretty fucking pissed at her.  Jo, his young partner, has a family of his own now, and a boy named Tonio.   Tony’s not making money, not finding respect or success.  Jo and his buddy Mario come to Tony with a smash and grab heist on an extremely well-protected jewelry store.  Fueled by the rejection of his woman, Tony decides to go along with the plan, except he decides their going to go for the big score, to crack the store safe.

What follows is one of the greatest theiving scenes ever in the history of film.  It could only work in a foreign film, and probably a black and white one.  Today’s audiences are too amped up to appreciate something that’s as delicately designed as this.  The store’s security system is state of the art for the time.  Cutting the wires sets off the alarms.  Making loud sounds or vibrations on the floors or walls will set off the alarms.  Also, the jewelry store is in a busy city neighborhood.  So the men purchase a copy of the system and figure out a way to foil it.  So they break into the owner’s apartment, which is housed above the store, and they chisel, carefully, oh so carefully and silently, through the ceiling.  It’s an amazingly tense scene, and powerful, because there is no soundtrack behind it.  Just the half an hour robbery sequence.  Where they carefully dismantle and disable the system. 

After the robbery, the film descends into a third act that seems less interesting in the face of the awesomeness that’s the silent robbery, but captivating none the less.  The movie is economically put together, small details that seem extravagant are later used for payoff.  After pulling off the 240 million dollar caper, of course someone’s going to find out, and that someone’s going to be the hustler Tony’s girl is shacking up with.  After torturing the cohorts to find out the location of the jewels, the hustler decides he’s going to kidnap Jo’s son.  And so it becomes a tense trade-off, is Tony going to find the boy before the hustler gets his money?  An ending that’s truly French does not disappoint.

If you’re into the caper film, you should watch this purely for educational value.  It really does show you how the genre was formed.  For me, at least, it was intriguing to watch how it influenced everything that came after it.   Plus, you’ll feel awesome, because you know about Jules Dassin’s epic heist caper.  And there’s nothing sexier than a well-educated man.  Except a full head of hair, muscles, being tall, and freshly shaved.   

Because I watch The Wire On Demand, as well as Breaking Bad (so now I am criminally behind, the price of having a social life and inability to concern myself with DVR or TiVo), on Mondays, I rarely find myself watching television on Sunday nights, except after 10 PM, when I begin my Adult Swim immersion.  (I don’t want to ruin The Wire for anyone who hasn’t watch the newest, newest episode, but HOLY SHIT.)  But, I was curious to see the American Gladiators finale.  Why it had to be two hours, well, because reality television sucks a donkey’s cock.  Yes, game shows are reality television.  Shut up.

Two thoughts on my viewing:

1) It is seriously awesome/funny/disturbing that the gladiators tower over the contenders when doing the Joust event.  How these dipshits are going to be the next American Gladiators when they’re about half the size of the actual gladiators will hopefully involve lots and lots of steroids and genetic engineering.  Ask Roger Clemens.

2) Knight Rider was so terrible to watch, the only way I’m going to tune in again is if they actually ride around on Val Kilmer’s back for the rest of the show.

Fin.