Superman

Saw the Synger Superman movie with Alec and his younger brother, the bandleader of Junction 55 and the Trumpeteers (now that it’s on the internet, it’s true). I thought the movie was paced too slowly, while Alec disagreed. Both of us felt that it captured the majesty of Superman, and treated him with the reverence that the character deserves. The acting is a little bit strange though. Routh is a good Superman but a bad Clark Kent; he doesn’t do quite enough to distance the two portrayals. Also, Clark never seems to be working, which is a bit problematic. Kate Bosworth is bad to ok, while James Marsden is surprisingly good. The big problem is that there isn’t enough of Kevin Spacey, who sells the Luthor character convincingly. As for the plot, well, that’s a bit problematic. The evil scheme is too close to the first Superman for my taste, while the whole Lois-Cyclops-Superman love triangle and Lois Lane: ace reporter/mother bit fell flat. But, in the end, if you want a plot you listen to a radio play. When you go to the movies, you want to see beautiful pictures, and Superman certainly is that.

Anyway, the movie got me thinking: what is the best song about Superman? Here’s my quick list of candidates:

1) R.E.M, Superman. A good song, but too pretty to rock out to while kicking Doomsday’s ass.

2) Eminem, Superman. Probably the only song on the list that makes reference to Mariah Carey being a whore. For that reason alone, this one is the early favorite.

3) Spin Doctors, Jimmy Olson Blues. What ever happened to these guys? They probably should have been the biggest act of the last twenty years. This song alone garuantees them induction into the rock and roll hall of fame. And did I mention Two princes?

4) Crash Test Dummies, Soloman Grundy. Probably the winner just because it references Soloman Grundy, one of the more pointless of superman’s rogues gallery. Alec, btw, correctly points out that Luthor is the only great pure Superman villain. I disagree. Society is the only villain capable of destroying Superman–I’m not even joking this time. If you want to defeat Superman, make people stop believing in him. He’s like the energizer bunny. If you don’t believe in him, he wont haunt your dreams.

5) 3 Doors Down, Kryptonite. A great rock number, but like all Superman stories it eventually resorts to using Kryptonite to defeat Superman. For shame.

6) That 5 for Fighting song. I don’t want to admit I like it, but I do. Even better when covered by drunk mexican guys.

And the winner is: A Tie! 1) John Williams’ Superman theme. Really, besides Star Wars, what movie score is more recognizable? 2) The Ducktales theme song!

US Cellular food- A correction

As per Robert’s comment: I did not mean to denegrate the Triple Play Cafe at the Cell in my post. If it were not for the TPC, I would be purchasing kosher dogs and would thus be rendered incapable of consuming dairy products for the next 9 innings.

(BTW, wouldn’t Kashrut be far more entertaining if it were tied to innings in baseball–or cricket–games instead of time. Time consuming pitchers would be denegrated in the media, Nomar would be banned from ever hitting. Anything that slowed the game down would be reviled. The Kevin Brown perfect inning-3 pitches-would replace striking out the side as the gold standard. Presumably, this would hurt concession sales, making it a no-deal with Jewish owners. Still, it would add to the arbitrariness of Jewish law, which is never a bad thing.)

Save the Apes!

Just got back from the Lincoln Park zoo with Jen. Save the Apes! Do whatever you can to protect our ape friends. Unlike Baseball games, Apes are girlfriend catnip. Help support the wildlife–it’ll help your love life.

Baseball and Life

1) Tadahito Iguchi hit two home runs in a two inning span, 1 a three run homer and the other a grand slam to tie the game and send it into extra innings. Alec, his brother, and I were ecstatic, while Jennifer sat there looking bored, becoming ever aware of the fact that she was going to have to spend more time at the ball park. Ah the white sox: late inning heroics that endear young children and phillies fans to the team, and ruin girlfriends’ nights.

A quick list of must buy, hot deal concessions:

The Cheese Quesodillas, 2.25. Only available at one dinky Mexican stand that probably should have been shut down years ago, these half cheese/half plastic wrapper treats are fun for the whole family. Cheap, and satisfying, however don’t expect much in the hot pepper department. Also, the freshness of the Queso’s is completely random. You never know when they’ve been made until you buy em.

The mini bag of Churros, 3.00. Probably about 2 or 3 churros worth of miniature goodness. Regular churros are $2! Take that full size world! The mini bag is of special favorite to the inhabitants of the doll house in the Museum of Science and Industry.

Snow Cones, 2.25. Quite large, taking at least an inning and a half to drink properly. Probably priced so cheaply because they’re Jesus’ favorite.

The Designated Driver soda special, free! Just give your licence number and you get a ticket good for a 16 ounce soda. They don’t even stamp your hand when you sign up, so there’s really no way they could check to see if you’re a DD when you go to buy beer. Unbelievably great promotion for the consumer. Probably not a good one for the pedestrians of the world, because the only people that find out about this deal are people who might otherwise drive drunk.

2) Brett Myers. You don’t really want to believe it about your favorite players. We want to think of them as heroes who sacrifice all for the team, and live the sport. Or we want to think of them dating the hottest of celebrities so the camera can show us what they come home to at night. We don’t want to think of them having real lives, with real problems, and real issues. I don’t want to judge too fast, but I don’t want to minimize what happened. I wish him and his wife luck in sorting through things, and I hope he can learn to deal with his problem. Domestic violence is terrible, and disgusting, but not every case is the same. Some can be worked through. We should let the light shine a little less bright on Brett and allow him and his wife to try and get help.

paucity of posts

more on myers, the fallen icon and generator of tremendous internet traffic coming up tonight. this is just a hello post to let you know i'm still alive. Jen's visit came at the perfect time. my anne hathaway obsession is retreating to normal levels, and i no longer have interest in becoming prince of moldavia. plus, jen's just great to have around. 

a longer post on myers when i return from the sox game.  

Havoc

Off the bat, I’m going to admit that I only wanted to watch this movie because it offered a chance to see Anne Hathaway’s breasts in a heterosexual friendly fashion. Plus, it had Bijou Philips of “The Door in the Floor” fame (More on TDITF–best title of all time. Just say it in one of those over-dramatic movie announcer voices. You can’t not laugh.) and the chance at sapphic love between the two. Alas, Anne does not reciprocate her friend’s feelings. The movie is pretty awful, although not without watchable moments. It also probably took itself more seriously than any movie I’ve ever seen.

Academy Award winner Stephen Gaghan wrote the script. This makes sense, as every character in the movie appears to be based on Topher Grace’s character in Traffic or Max Minghela’s character in Syrianna. Gaghan’s obsession with good looking druggie teenagers knows no bounds. There’s also a film maker character who is probably based on Stephen Gaghan’s own experiences as a nerdy teenager who really wanted to sleep with Anne Hathaway. In short, he was the most believable character in the movie.

The other characters are all suburban wiggers who want to see the “real” world and travel to the dark hispanic underworld of East LA. 16th Street! Joseph Gordon Levitt gives a totally convincing performance as a young wigger in love, supplanting Alexander Hamilton as Columbia’s most successful graduate.

But the real highlight of the movie was this choice moment. While spending a night in Juvie, Anne Hathaway is made fun of by a group of street tough sisters. Anne’s parents come and bail her out, at which point one of the harrassers offers this choice line: “She got parents?” I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind that this is based on the line “Peter Pan’s got kids?” from Hook, and laughed for the next hour or so.

Sigh, they don’t make teen social dramas like they used to. Hopefully American Pie 4 will make up for Havoc.

Streetcars

I simultaneously think building streetcars is a terrific and awful idea. Modern streetcars (i.e. Portland) are cost-efficient, and attractive to riders. Heritage streetcars, on the other hand, seem to be needless kitsch. That being said, the main problem with Heritage Streetcars is their limited scope. Downtown loops are fine and dandy for tourists, but useless for residents who need a way to get downtown.

The Little Rock Trolley shows the mixed blessings of streetcars. My friends and I visited the Paris of Arkansas on our road trip last year, and took a ride on the Gomaco replica trolley. It was a fun 7 minutes. Then we got off and had pizza (all of us actually really liked the town, even though it was barren on a sunday). Apparently, the streetcar is spurring some development.

Here is a condo being built.

But something tells me the President Clinton library is the real spur for development in Little Rock, and that the trolley will be beneficial in ferrying Clinton fans around town.

Now, if Little Rock built trolleys all over the place, leading people downtown, that could actually do something.  

Signs The End is Nigh

1) People being led to my site by google searches are actually finding what they're looking for. While I seem to be getting an overwhelming number of hits for Brandy Taylor's wikipedia page (which I can only assume does not exist because she's trying to keep her "amateur" status and does not want to be classified as a "professional", even though we all know that's what she is), most of the searches that lead people here are now about things I've covered on the site. Fans of the internets know that successful google searches are a rarity. I'm very thankful for doing my part.

2) Sitcom writing is surprisingly difficult. Neither Alec nor I can come up with a mundane 20th century threat that could be over solved by being exploded. Please help. Also, it is quite clear that no one not named Josh Joseph will ever want to see our show. I do hope there are at least 5 million Josh Josephs out there.

3) French people have a funny understanding of english. From my teacher, who is a professional translator of French INTO English: le plus=the most; le moins=the less. Also, he could not understand why none of us knew the word "Abbey" before I was able to explain that it was a Britishism. At which point he gleamed with the reassurance of being superior in English to all Americans.

4) Southwest Airlines is going to test assigned seating. They're also considering starting international flights. This is great news. I can't wait for the day when the meal on a transcontinental flight is two twix bars (4 for me–none for you). Btw, never take an American carrier international. Always stick to the Europeans, and petition your congressman for loosening of international carrier regulations.

5) Vineland is almost understandable. Has Eitan gone crazy? Part of the fun of reading Pynchon is having no clue what is going on. 60 pages into Vineland and I'm still not lost. What's happened! Thank god for the ridiculous analepsis, or I'd have no clue what I was reading.

6) Electricity and hot water have been restored to the bathroom of my apartment. So long cold showers-some of us have entered the 20th century.

Summer school. Sigh.

Summer school got off to a bang last night. Class was exhausting and long. The one thing that really made up for it though was the fact that my teacher is an extremely hot french guy, straight from the Ecole Normale. Even though I'm decidedly not gay, I appreciate the effort put in by the University of Chicago to make sure that we have a good looking teacher. All universities should do whatever they can to make sure that long night classes have incredibly attractive instructors. I can only assume this is the official policy of the U of C, and I just happened to be in one of the classes with a male instructor. If only I'd taken that Tagalog class instead. 

White House Press Corps Mania

An actual white house press briefing.

Q. There's a controversy this week over Congressman John Murtha's comments about Karl Rove. What can you tell us? Specifically, does Mr. Rove have a "fat backside"?
Snow: I don't want to comment on the anatomical aspects of White House staff.
Q. Come on, Tony, It's just a factual question. Is his backside fat, or not?
Snow: Again, I don't think the question is appropriate.
Q. Well, how would you describe his backside?
Snow: Mr. Rove's posterior is rotund.
Q. Well, isn't rotund the same as fat?
Snow: I'll leave it you in the press to parse the meaning of those words. I'm only authorized to say, his posterior is rotund.

More here.