I HATE MYSELF FOR LOVING YOU

So, guilty pleasures, they're something that everyone has: Things that you know are bad but you like them anyway. Whether it's a bad action movie or a vapid reality TV show or cheesy romance novel, there's just no accounting for taste sometimes. I'm going post some of my guilty pleasures and why I like them (and why I shouldn't) in the hopes that others will too. So, to the two people who follow this blog: You're ON NOTICE. And please don't make fun of me for some of this.

(Quick note before I start: Guilty pleasures entail that you like the thing entirely unironically, it has to receive the response it seeks from you. Thus, I'm not going to put stuff like Bad Boys 2 on this list because I'm laughing at that movie, not with it.)

Crank: It's pretty much everything I'm against socially in movie form: it's sexist and racist and homophobic and generally reeks of a sort of frat boy, "let's get drunk and laid", nihilism. Add that to the fact that they're are people who take this movie way too friggin' seriously (i.e. seriously at all) and that the action scenes aren't particularly well-staged (it suffers from the all-too-common problem of too many fast cuts in many modern action movies), except for a couple of good gags (the guy falling off of the fire escape, for example), and this movie should be awful, right? Well, there are two things that make this movie work at all: 1) The Statham, 'nuff said. 2) The fact that the filmmakers are just trying to keep topping themselves in terms of out-there insanity. I mean, really, what is there to say about a movie where a guy driving a car through a mall is the least ridiculous thing? In terms of sheer "WTF?"-factor Crank has basically any movie this side of Asia beat. It's also got a certain sense of humour about itself and I love the wild, free-wheeling visual style that incorporates pretty much every little filmic trick in the book to enhance the crazy plot. It's the Annie Hall of action films, in that way. Crank is pretty-much just a teenage male fantasy brought to life but it'll hold anyone's attention in a social setting (if only because they're so offended) and it's probably the purest "guy movie" out there. Still, unless you're of a particular mindset (read: full of testosterone), you're not gonna like this and you basically don't want your wife, girlfriend or mom to know that this movie even exists.

The Notebook: Now, let's take a trip to the exact opposite end of the estrogen-testosterone scale with this movie, an adaptation of a novel by Nicholas Sparks (more on him in a bit) that is probably the most direly cheesy and melodramatic romance you'll ever see. In fact, words like "melodramatic" don't even begin to describe The Notebook; we need to invent new terms just for this movie. But, as I've said before, I'm a sucker for this type of over-the-top melodrama when it comes to romance and I'll admit I caught up in this one. Actually, it's sort of odd because I resisted it for a long time just based on the poster (because, well, yeah) and a plot synopsis. Also, the reviews weren't great. But, in one of those weird coincidences that happens sometimes, I was clicking around the dial one day and stopped to watch for a minute (mostly due to the costume design) without knowing exactly what it was. Before I knew it, I was, against all of my masculinity and better judgement, absorbed into this story. It's bad on any rational level (the characters are cliched, the plot progression doesn't make logical sense, everything is exaggerated to the point of hyper-reality), and a lot of the characters' actions exist in this romantic-in-theory-but-would-be-pathetic-in-real-life area that so many love stories inhabit (the scene where Ryan Gosling hangs off the Ferris Wheel bar to ask Racheal McAdams on a date is particularly eye-rolling). Still, there's a sort of undeniable pull that this movie holds for me; the variety of hyper-cheesy romance pushed here trumps the more-"realistic" fare of, say, He's Just Not That Into You (hi, Lana!) for me because I'd rather be enraptured in a fantasy that allows me to forget about my troubles for a while than have to deal with a more bitter story that makes me, to some extent, confront my issues (exceptions when said relative realism is extremely well-written as in Annie Hall or Say Anything). Also, it's very well-directed with excellent production/costume design and well-acted, for this type of material, to boot. And we all need to indulge our stupid romantic fantasies sometimes, right?



Every Nicholas Sparks novel that I've read except A Walk to Remember: Sparks is really bad writer; I mean that, he's really terrible. He doesn't have a feel for natural speech, he's extremely melodramatic and he repeats himself an awful lot if you read more than one of his books. However, his utterly overblown romantic stories touch a nerve for me (and, clearly, a lot of other people because he sells a lot of copies). They're perfect to lose yourself in if you're feeling bad and, as overblown as his descriptions are, I'm willing to forgive him because he's clearly working on more on an emotional level than anything else. And, if nothing else, he's a master of emotional manipulation, that or I'm easy. But when he wants me to feel sad, I feel sad, when he wants me to feel all warm and fuzzy, I feel all warm and fuzzy. I haven't read the book of The Notebook (I figure it's redundant given that I saw the movie) or Nights In Rodanthe (mostly because I thought that the movie of it looked awful) but otherwise, I have an unnatural love for his stuff. With the exception of A Walk to Remember, that is; I didn't like that one mostly because of the overbearing Christian message of it, which was sort of disappointing because the premise wasn't awful but, I dunno, it just didn't work for me.

There are lots of other things I could put on here but those will suffice for now. Perhaps this will be a running feature on here, who knows.

TRULY, YOU BREAK MY HEART, BUT I'll BE THERE BESIDE YOU

- Lost last night was pretty good, if a bit confusing. Once again, it did feel like a shotgun blast of facts in a certain way, but it was clearly anchored to Locke's story and it was invested with enough panache by the actors that I never felt bored. I do like the interesting way that they're playing Ben and Widmore off of each other , such that the audience doesn't know which one to trust. Lost has always played with a lot of ambiguities but this is a particularly interesting one; I'm definitely excited for next next week.

Also, Locke is a pretty hardcore driver.

- Monday's 24 definitely made up for last week's boringness. So much insane shit went down that I probably don't remember every awesome thing but here's a brief summary:

- Jack driving through a park
- A van doing a freakin' barrel roll
- Renne slapping Jack ("Do you feel that?")
- Renne pulling her gun on Jack
- Dubacku having a microchip UNDER HIS SKIN
- Oily FBI programmer dude shooting his girlfriend while making-out with her
- "I want to see my attorney"
- The totally out-of-the-blue appearance from Tony at the end, introducing the next threat ("This is real, Jack.")
- "OPEN HIM UP"

The one complaint I have is that the episode continued in the pattern of this season in that by the end of the episode the entire threat is over but then there's an arbitrary, tacked-on thing at the end of the episode to keep the plot going. In this case, it was especially glaring.

Also, Janeane Garafalo was in there for, like, 20 seconds at most. I am not impressed by this.

- Slumdog Millionaire is, in essence, a fairytale but it's a pretty good one and it's told with an eye-popping visual style, acted with verve and strength and blessed with one of the best scores in a long while. It's basically Danny Boyle dressing up old-school Hollywood pictures with hyper-active directing (even the way the subtitles are done feels innovative and fresh) and a modernist setting; he's daring you not to fall for these elements that are older than you (the long-lost, destined, love, the brother vs. brother conflict, the rags-to-riches plot arc), and you do fall for them. Partly because they're so durable but also because they're invested with wide-eyed sincerity by the actors and a genuine interest by the director. I'm glad that this movie won Best Picture at the Oscars because I think it shows that people are ready to accept movies that make them feel good as genuine art again ; especially when compared to last year's winner, the cold-hearted No Country For Old Men (which, to be clear, I do like), it's a tribute to the human spirit and the power of true love. And, I'll admit, I got a little choked up when our man Jamal and the love of his life Latika finally meet in the train station at the end of the movie for their big kiss and the answer to the question that runs throughout the entire movie ("How did Jamal win all this money?", in essence) is flashed on the screen ("It is written"); it was one of the most powerfully emotional moments of cinema I've seen in a long while.

Of course, the movie cleverly undercuts this over-the-top sentimentality of that scene in the following dance number as the credits roll, but, to me, that just makes it even better.

I'M A PROBLEM THAT'LL NEVER, EVER, BE SOLVED

A few posts back, I mentioned that my two favourite albums from last year were 808's & Heartbreak by Kanye West and The '59 Sound by the Gaslight Anthem. Today, I'd like to expand upon that statement with my thoughts about those albums:



- 808's & Heartbreak, as awesome an album as it is, is always going to make me feel a bit sad, partially because of the album's lyrical content and sonic design, but also because of a bit more personal reason. If you'll indulge me: In November, when the album was released, I felt awful about life, it was cold and miserable outside and I was having a lot of emotional issues, not too get too deep into that stuff but, really, 808's was the record I truly needed at that time in my life. I was really confused about myself and my attitudes and where I wanted to go and, as strange as this may seem, this album helped me through it. I felt a knowing empathy at some of the words here; in particular, there's a line in "Welcome to Heartbreak" which goes like: "Chased the good life my whole life long, look back on my life and my life gone". That really spoke to me because I was feeling that a lot of the decisions I had made weren't for the best, that I had wanted the wrong things in my life. But, overall, the record's mood of chill, misery and unease struck an emotional chord with me. I felt as if an egotistical multi-millionaire was going through some similar stuff as me and I felt a genuine empathy with his words. Of course, the record is a commercial product, as all music is, but it really worked for me as an emotional touchstone to one of the worse periods of my life. It was a sounding board, a confirmation, a confession. For these reasons alone, it'll always have a place in my collection.



Still, a few months down the line when I'm a lot happier, does the record hold up? With two caveats, absolutely. First, the caveats: "See You In My Nightmares" is awful except for Lil Wayne's bridge (the less said about his guest verse, though, better) and "Amazing" is far better without Young Jeezy's guest verse (he should really lay off the cigarettes, by the way). That said, the rest of the record is pretty friggin' sweet. The songs are at once spartan (with one exception, they have basic, coldly thumping rhythmic tracks) and grand (the string swoops at the end of "Bad News" just kill me, "Welcome To Heartbreak" has a world-swallowing melodrama worthy of Depeche Mode), with all sorts of little sonic tracks and details that enhance the overall mood. Speaking of which, this has to be one of the coldest, most emotionally racked albums I've heard in a long while. Kanye really provides his own defining image for the record in the packaging: a poster of himself standing alone in a white room, dressed in a suit, expressionless, wearing shades and that broken-heart lapel thing; I could think of no better picture to define the record.



There's a couple of points where he seems to be trying through sheer will to bring himself out of his emotional funk, but even those are uneasy: "Paranoid" could work as a dancefloor number, especially with its bridge of "lady, let's go out to the floor", but its hammering synth-pound evokes a a rush fueled by coke rather than dancing and the words are wracked with guilt, anger and pain (though Kanye does sing, via fairly intelligent use of auto-tune, as if he's trying to have fun). Similarly, "Robocop" is Kanye trying to laugh it off, crack some stupid jokes about his ex to get over her, but its internal drama is too grand for a joke and by the time the string-filled coda of Kanye calling the woman a "spoiled little L.A. girl" kicks in, one gets the sense that he isn't quite over it.



The record does swing wildly to emotional extremes (after lashing out on "Robocop", Kanye sheepishly apologizes on "Street Lights"; after dissecting his own faults on "Welcome To Heartbreak", he blames everything on the other party in "Heartless") but that feels more right than something more focused, it feels more true to the subject matter. People often swing wildly in the messy aftermath of a relationship and the schizoid nature of the words here mirror that perfectly.



Let's put this in a bit of perspective: I have a group of albums that I call "Good Music For Bad Times", it's the music I play when I'm depressed or upset about something. As you may guess, it's mostly stuff like Joy Division's entire catalogue, Disintegration by The Cure and Springsteen's Nebraska. Well, 808's & Heartbreak has been inducted into that exclusive class of albums, and that's a hard thing to do. It's an album that's willing to be emotional while not being "emo" and that's especially rare in hip-hop. Kanye was never a macho-thug type but it's still surprising, and satisfying, to see him take this big a risk by being completely emotionally out-there. It's a big change-up from the average-guy rap that balanced humorous boasting with warm sentiment that Kanye has, rightly, become famous and acclaimed for but it's just as great in its own way.

Wow, that took longer than I though. Well, I'll talk about the Gaslight Anthem some other time. Thoughts on 24, Lost and Slumdog Millionaire (which I'm seeing on the 'morrow) will be posted some time this week.

IF YOU DON'T ANSWER, I'LL JUST RING IT OFF THE WALL

- It's sort of funny how songs that you otherwise hate can become a perfect excuse for dancing around like an idiot given certain circumstances. Case in point: the East semi on Friday, the music played was, for the most part, things I wouldn't listen to privately in a million years but as background rhythm to dumbing out, it's pretty good. Examples of this effect: "Single Ladies", "Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)" and "In The Ayer". One complaint: They didn't play "Jizz In My Pants", or "I'm On A Boat", or that techno remix of Christian Bale freaking out. I guess those are just TOO HARDCORE for a school function but they played the uncut version of "It's Goin' Down" and that uses the n-word, like, five times. By the way, that song continues to infuriate me 'lo these many years. What the hell is going down, Yung Joc? I assume it's a party or something, but you need to explain your self further.

At any rate, I had a fun time. I went there to dance and act like an idiot and that's what I did and I successfully avoided any stupid drama. I did have a slight regret that I didn't ask for a slow dance with a particular person, but you can't dwell on stuff like that. There's always next time. Also, I sort of looked like a parish priest because I used my kerchief to hold my shirt collar shut because I couldn't find a tie; it ended up looking kind like those collars they wear, when combined with my shirt, so, yeah.

- I'll avoid spoiling Suzanne's Diary For Nicholas, mostly for the benefit of one person who's reading this, except to say that it ends happily but there's some (okay, a lot) of tragedy to get there. The thing I liked about it most though is that, despite its polish of 21st century atmosphere, it's sort of defiantly old-fashioned, written without a trace of irony, skepticism or cynical wit. And, at heart, I'm sort of an old-fashioned guy: being hip and jaded can work sometimes (I love both the book and the movie of Fight Club, and those are filled with cynicism and irony and post-modern technique) but, to me, a romance requires the person writing it to be unafraid to be melodramatic and sentimental, because, as much as people would try to deny it, love is, by nature, sort of melodramatic and sentimental. My issue with a lot of more modern romances (more often it's romantic-comedies) is that they try to have it both ways; they try to be all hip and cynical about relationships but they also try to portray a convincing love story. To me, that just diminishes the impact of both of the elements. I'd be lying if I said that bitterness isn't sometimes appealing to me, I love the majority of Raymond Carver's work, for example, but the thing is that Carver, who often targeted love with his bitter ire, didn't play both sides, he knew what feelings and ideas he wanted to evoke and he did them very well. Similar story with Hemmingway (though I've never really liked his work that much because it just oozes misogyny at pretty much every turn). By the same token, the classic widescreen romances were all about wish fulfillment and sentimentality, they were what they were and they did what the did very well. I think it's partially an issue of the post-modern critical cache making terms like "sentimental" or "overblown" out to be the mark of the devil; I hate to quote Paul McCartney to prove something but I love his statement that "being sentimental means you like things". There's this prevailing attitude, primarily among literary-snob types, that embracing big emotions openly is somehow tantamount to sacrilege; that all writing should be post-modern and skeptical and emotionally numb. Although this raises an obvious question about the life experiences of those critics, that's an irrelevant cheap shot. The real question is: why are denying art that is purely emotionally satisfying and doesn't require a P.H.D in literary studies to understand? I think it's a two-pronged issue: 1) People like to feel smart, so, if someone tells them that they have to be able to "get" a creative work because it's "cerebral" or whatever, people are naturally going to make an effort to understand, or pretend to understand, the work in an attempt to one-up people around them. 2) At some point along the line "populist"got equated with "stupid". I blame Jerry Bruckheimer. A lot of dumb-ass things get really popular (*cough* Transformers *cough*) but being made with a wide appeal doesn't necessarily mean that something is dumbed down. One of those whipping boys for sentiment is Forrest Gump, but that movie isn't dumb; it's certainly intended to appeal to the widest possible audience but there's a good deal of complexity going on there.

But, back to romance: the other reason I see for the influx of 'have it both ways" in romantic comedies is that movies are trying to appeal to a much broader audience of people who's entertainment demands have changed. This is where populism can go bad, where something appeals to a broad audience not by its nature but by marketing design. It's why every action movie is now PG-13 and includes a romantic subplot. It's why romances now have tooth-grindingly bad comedic relief and hit obvious teenage-guy sex appeal buttons ("Hey, let's put some scantily-clad models in here"). I suppose this is an argument in favour of genre solidarity but I go to watch an action movie for the action and, in some cases such as superhero movies, the mythic narrative. I don't need a love story in the middle of that. On the flip side, I go to see a love story to forget about the fact that I'll never have a girlfriend for 2 hours. Obnoxious comedy and skin-flashing distract from that. I guess what I'm trying to say is : know your audience, or at least know the reasons people go to see a particular genre of film.

I was having it out with one of my female friends about this a couple months ago when Australia came out. She thought that the movie looked awful and I asked why. Her response was that it was that it looked really cheesy and unrealistic (Note: I sometimes remember things wrong, so, since I know that the person I'm talking about will read this, if I say something that isn't right, please correct me). My response was that I liked my romances as cheesy and widescreen and epic and unrealistic as possible. It's better to be overblown when you're dealing with an emotion as grandiose as love. I know of few other feelings that have caused so much to happen in human lives and history. Doesn't that emotion deserve to be rendered in a way that is as outsize as it feels when you experience it?

I also might have said that Australia was my sort of romance because the chances of me being in a relationship are so unlikely that I may as well watch something that's purely fantasy than something that's more realistic. Australia and, to choose a favourite of hers, Must Love Dogs are equally unlikely for me, one is just a lot more fun because it's so ridiculous.

Please note that I haven't actually seen Australia yet, and neither has she, this is just us going by the trailers and commercials. For all I know, she was right and the movie is terrible.

Well, that was a long-winded way of making an obscure point. To summarize, Suzanne's Diary For Nicholas is a good book and if you need something that'll make you feel halfway decent about life, you should read it. Also, "sentimental" isn't a four-letter word, or, at least, it shouldn't be.

- Quick Lost bit to wrap this up: Last week's episode was decent but kind of slow. Also, not nearly enough Sayid. Next episode is all Locke, all the time, it should be awesome.


Final thing: All of my blog post titles are quotes from song lyrics. If you can spot what this post's title is taken from you will know what song I always liked but never truly understood until this weekend.

I HAVEN'T SEEN SANDY, AND JOHNNY OR MARY

- 24 was sort-of boring last night, not a whole lot really happened and overall it just felt like an episode of the writers moving all the pieces into place for the next set of episodes. But this sort of downtime is necessary to set up the more action-packed episodes, so, I remain hopeful for next week. Also, Janeane Garafalo was particularly sexy this week (mostly because she was all pissed off at everyone) and I'm willing to forgive a lot for that.

- SHOOT THE GLASS

- Hans brings sexy back

- There are few things better on Youtube than this

- This article says a lot of what I was trying to say about Mad Men in a much more intelligent way (even if I disagree with the somewhat blunt assessment of the show's characterization of its female characters as misogynistic)

- Suzanne's Diary For Nicholas persists in being pretty good stuff. Some of the language is a bit too flowery for its own good and the characters seem to speak in poem a lot of the time but I still like it a lot.

God, I don't have very much to write about today. Somebody needs to give me a topic to go off on.

COME ON YOU POET, YOU PIPER, YOU PRISONER

- I've been re-watching Season 2 of Mad Men over the past few days and I still really like that show. I realize that most people (especially people my age) would be bored out of their skulls by it but, if you get the chance, watch at least the first episode and just see if it interests you. What's not to love about a show where admen in the early 60's dressed in impeccably tailored suits stand around and talk about things?

Well, actually, a lot could go wrong with that premise (and the show borders on soap opera at its lower points), but the thing I really love about the show is that it works on different levels. If you don't want to put a lot of effort into watching it, it's simply a really well-done costume drama with impeccable production design. If you go further, it's a great character piece that imbues well-worn stereotypes (the plucky working girl, the flirty secretary, the oily businessman, the long-suffering housewife) with all sorts of interesting quirks and ambiguities, And, should you so choose, the show provides a really interesting examination of the changing social forces of a time that, in many ways, is ground-zero for modern North American life and, somewhat shockingly, a lot of these things are still relevant. For example, a single-episode subplot where the ad team try to come up with a marketing campaign for a bra, deciding on an approach that sells the item via a campaign which categorizes all women as either a "Jackie Kennedy" (prim, upright, proper, "the kind of girl you take home to meet the folks") or a "Marylin Monroe" (flirty, fun, sexually available), with the marketing hook that the brand of bra being sold will make the woman buying it both a "Jackie" and a "Marylin". The importance of this? Well, as one of the shows characters mentions "bras are there for the man" and the campaign is formed out of the idea that men want the girl they're with to be both the Jackie and the Marylin, the housewife and the party girl. In show, it's interesting and clever and leads to some funny dialogue exchanges but as I thought about it more, I realized that maybe the expressed idea (men wanting two, contradictory, things out of their partners) still means a lot, you see a lot of behavior that speaks to attitudes like that, even today. It made me think about my attitudes towards relationships, and the things I want out of them, as well. I saw a bit of myself in the attitudes of the show's characters, and, as scary as that was, it brings up an interesting point: Have we truly advanced in our thinking as relative to the time in which Mad Men takes place or has our discourse simply gotten better about working around it? I don't really have an answer, but it's interesting to think about. If anybody would like to comment about this, I'd really appreciate it, it's something I'd like to discuss.

And, really, if a TV show can get me to that level of introspection, it must be doing something right.

(Disclaimer: I might just like Mad Men because it is the only show on TV with women in 60's office lady outfits, and there's nothing more sexy than that)

- It's been a weekend of made-up holidays with both Family Day and Valentine's Day. My Valentine's Day was better than last year, but last year I spent Valentine's Day seeing Jumper in theatres, so, yeah.

Anyways, I'll hit you with 24-related content on the 'morrow. For now, I'd really like some comments about that stuff up there.

MY EYES DRIFTED OUT THE WINDOW, DOWN TO THE ROAD BELOW

- Micheal Crichton might have been kind of a pseudo-science hack, but he wrote some pretty entertaining stuff. Evidence of this: his novel Next, the last he published before he died. I'm about a third of the way through it, and I'm digging it so far. Some of the scientific descriptions can be overly dry at points but there's generally enough movement to keep things interesting and fast-paced. In fact, this could make a really good movie or TV mini-series, if someone were willing to invest the large amount of money that would be needed to make that happen. I've always liked the off-the-cuff feel of Crichton's work, it feels like he's just taking ideas and issues he wants to talk about and wrapping a fast-paced thriller around them (in this case, it's genetic testing); he feels authentic passion for his subject matter, even if the way he presents it is very pulpy. Of course, the standard complaints about Crichton all apply: there's a lot of assumed logic and leaps of faith in terms of storytelling, he can't write female characters for crap, he can be overly verbose and his prose style is intensely hokey. Also, I could do without the graphic sex scenes. Still, I'm liking it a lot more than I liked State of Fear and it's about as good as Prey, thus far.

- Cell is a pretty good Stephen King book. Even if it does remind me a lot of the beginning part of The Stand. There's not a whole lot I can say about it though; it's a interesting story hook and King fleshes it out enough to keep you going. Really, everybody likes at least some of the things King has written, so, I just need to say it's a good Stephen King book and that's all that really needs to be said.

- Our school's REACH team had a tournament today, we won two of our games and lost one game by ten points.

- I don't want to be all "Woe is me!" but I am sort of sad that I'll be spending Valentine's Day alone. It's no big deal though, I guess, I've got my James Patterson romance novel and my stuffed Hershey's rabbit to keep me company, I'll be good.

- Finally, because I promised to write this: MR. OAKES IS A COOL DUDE.

WE LIVED OUR LIVES AT NIGHT ON THEM BACKSTREETS

- Last night's Lost was pretty good. I still have the complaint that it seemed, in some ways, like an info dump more than a story (Elouise is Daniel's mom! Charlotte lived on the Island! Here's how Roussaeu's team died!), at least what we learned was interesting and the episode was decently anchored by the Sun/Jin relationship (which I've always enjoyed watching). I'm suspicious of the mechanics of the Island flashes, though. If it only affects outsiders, why wasn't Rousseau flashing through time as well? For that matter, why is Charlotte having the flashes, given that she was born on the Island? Hopefully, at least some of this will be explained next week (and I look foreword to the giant swinging pendulum I saw in the preview). Also, Sayid had, like, one line in the entire episode, he may as well have shown up and been like "I'm Arabic!" and left; that would've been preferable.

- Those thunderstorm warnings are really friggin' annoying when they pop up during TV shows.

- We had really interesting discussion about the concept of the Tabula Rasa in Theory of Knowledge class today. Basically, as science is learning more and more about the human mind, we're seeing that the concept of being born as a "blank slate" for ideas and teaching and experiences to impress upon is more and more false. Yet, our institutions are still clinging to the ideals of a Tabula Rasa system. Of course, the obvious question is how do we apply this knowledge? The concept of certain people being born inherently "better" or different than others has been used to justify some abhorrent shit in the past (the Nazi party, racism, misogyny) but I don't think that the science should be ignored just because of the bad taste it leaves in our mouths. If the scale is reduced to person-to-person (versus group-to-group) and actual science (as opposed to religious codes or bullshit like phrenology) is applied, I think that a lot could be learned.

- Working On A Dream is a good Bruce Springsteen album, but not a great one. There are a few too many unmemorable tracks and the lyrics are shoddy at times. Also, Springsteen's lost some of his vocal range over the years, so when he tries to go all howling, Born To Run-style, he sometimes strains himself for notes really bad; he should stick to being all gruff and mumbly nowadays.

However, there's some seriously awesome stuff on this record and these are probably his most grandly layered songs since Born To Run. "My Lucky Day" is propulsive and fun, "Outlaw Pete" is grandly melodramatic, "Good Eye" is an effective Chess Records rip-off, "Surprise, Surprise" is exuberant power-pop (though the lyrics could use some work) and "The Last Carnival" is an affecting, somber tribute to one of Springsteen's dead bandmates. Also, I would be remiss in not giving special mention to "Queen of the Supermarket", which is a grandly silly (but played totally straight-faced) ode to a crush on a supermarket checkout lady, it's awesome.

In a lot of ways, this feels like the brighter flip-side to Springsteen's 2007 album Magic, which was grand in terms of sonics but also dour in lyrical tone. Not to make this too political, but if Magic was the sound of the bitter, beaten end days of Bush, the chipper Working On A Dream just might be the sound of a new dawn in Obama's America. This may be great for Springsteen (who campaigned for Obama), at least on a personal level, but, to me, Bruce always sounds best when he's mad at something and doesn't find a whole lot to get angry at on this album.

HEART LOCKED IN A GRAN TORINO

So, Gran Torino is a pretty awesome movie. It's not as action-y as the trailers make it look (though 'ol Clint kicks some serious ass for a 78 year-old), in fact, it's a really appealingly old-fashioned melodrama with a good dose of comedy.

Much has been made of Eastwood's supposed retirement after this role (personally, I'll believe he's retired when he dies), but if this is truly it, Gran Torino is a great career caper, with a character who reminds us of why we always love Eastwood (the twitches, the growls, the scowls) and a winning story at its core.

There's also been some ire directed towards the film for its, uh, liberal use of racial slurs but, really, they're used in service of a point about the greater realities of race relations in the modern world (and I've heard a lot of older people in the real world talk in the same ways, so, let's not pretend this is unheard of). Now, I will admit some of the stuff made me uncomfortable (in particular, the part where Eastwood calls a group of black teenagers a bunch of "spooks", and , even there, it was more an issue of a stereotypical portrayal than of what was actually said) but it's necessary for the film to show us that; to show us how this guy is changed by his friendship with the Hmong family next door even while he drifts further away from his own family. And, for the most part, the race-baiting was in the context of friendly insulting, as best demonstrated in a hilarious scene where Eastwood takes the Hmong teenager to a barber shop to teach him how to talk like a real man. The comedy worked, the drama worked, the action worked.

I have only a few, mostly minor, complaints: some of the supporting acting could have been better and some of the tonal shifts between the comedy and the drama were a bit abrupt. Also, I don't buy that any family would let their teenage daughter wear a belly shirt to a funeral (disclaimer: most of the girls I know wouldn't be caught dead in one of those, so, I may not be the best person to judge this), even if it did make for a hilarious scene where Eastwood glowered at her.

It's a movie that leaves you with a smile but a bit of melancholy, and the end credits song is awesome. I'm sure that one could write a paper on all of the dynamics (race, class, age, heck, even gender) going on in the theatre in which my friends and I (who were sitting right behind one of our school's English teachers) saw it, given that it was jam-packed with middle-class white people of greatly varying ages (seriously, there were, like, grandparents and 14 year-olds in there), all laughing and/or going "did he just say that?" in unison at all of the racial remarks. But you could also just forget about that and get swept up in a great story with Eastwood's, all always, great direction backing it up.

JUST A LITTLE LATE, YOU FOUND ME

- Suzanne's Diary For Nicholas is a really good book so far (I'm about halfway through it). I think that Patterson has a really deft touch with whatever he's writing and it's odd but the rhythms of his writing style really works in the context of a romance. It's like he's writing chick-lit as a suspense thriller, if that makes any sense. I guess it's just because Patterson honed his craft doing all those Alex Cross novels but he knows how to make you keep turning pages, even if the concerns are less crazy kidnapper masterminds and more heart-rending emotional moments. He's certainly not high art but he knows pop-lit like nobody's business. Small annoyance: "It's not you, it's me" is used at one point. I'm waiting for "it's not me, it's you", which I'll probably have said to me at least once in my life.

- Hannibal, the book, sort of sucks. Not as much as the movie, but, still. Thomas Harris is a brilliant writer in a technical sense but I seriously think that he doesn't understand his characters, or at least their appeals, at all. Here's a hint: Hannibal Lecter is interesting because he's never explained (or, as he puts it, in Silence Of The Lambs, "Nothing happened to me, I happened"), tacking on a stupid backstory about his dead sister only weakens him by providing a pat psychological explanation for his crimes (and don't even get me started about Hannibal Rising). Also, part of the terror of Hannibal is that we never see what he does to his victims; the brain scene and the mirror scene might work as gross-out moments and/or dark comedy but they seriously weaken Lecter's capacity to frighten. And his dialogue often crosses the line from "darkly funny" to "campy".

Furthermore, while I buy that Clarice would be burned out after ten years in the FBI, I don't buy that she would become Hannibal's lover to get away from that life. There's certainly a romantic underpinning to their relationship but as full-on romantic companions, I just don't see it happening. Though this may only be because I want Clarice Starling to always be single because she's my dream girl and I like to feel like I have some weird "chance" with her (even though she's, you know, fictional and all that), I dunno.

I sort of have to give Harris credit for sticking all manners of insane shit into the novel, though. I know of few writers who would think it's a good idea to have a guy cut his face off with a mirror and feed it to his dogs, or have that same dude get killed by having an electric eel stuffed down his throat by his lesbian sister who he used to molest with candy bars as a kid. And you have to respect an author who can get away with that and call it legitimate literature, to some degree.

- 24 was pretty sweet last night. Highlights:
- Colm Feore getting his finger lopped off
- Jack's brilliant retort to Larry ("The rules are what make us better" "Not today")
- Dubacku's conversation with his girlfriend ("You're kind enough for the both of us")
- Jack speeding into oncoming traffic
- Renne being a hardass ("I will shoot you where you stand"), and being very attractive while doing it, I might add.
- Presdient Taylor being a hardass (I might also add that it's interesting to see the typical spouse-kidnapping plot having the genders reversed), not looking as pretty while doing it
- Jack deploying his white-fu against a corrupt Secret Serivce agent
- Jack imitating Chow Yun-Fat while taking out a group of terrorists.
- A car getting blown-up with an RPG
- Janeane Garafalo being all sexy when she gets pissed off at that weaselly computer programmer guy. Let me tell you two things: 1) Janeane Garafalo can critique my work habits any day of the week, if you catch my drift and 2) That guy, and Larry, to a lesser extent, are stone cold idiots; they've got Janeane Garafalo (who is, presumably, single) there and they're ignoring her in favour of cheating on their wife with an FBI programmer in an uncomfortably short skirt and pining over a girl who is presumed dead, respectively; morons.

My only real complaints were that Dubacku leaving right before Jack burst in was a little too convenient for my taste, that, yet again, the terrorist hideout is in the back of a store and I still wonder how they're gonna keep going, given that the terrorists have zero leverage over the White House now. Also, they (maybe?) killed Colm Feore, this makes me sad.

- Those Robin Hudson mysteries are really good if you're looking for a relatively light read. They're short, they're funny and they're femme-noir (my new term I just made up for a film noir-esque thing with woman as the main character). And, really, is there anything more sexy than a red-headed lady journalist solving mysteries and being all wittily cynical about everything? Yes, but only if that lady journalist is also Janeane Garafalo.

That's all I've got to say for now, I'm seeing Gran Torino tonight and I'll report back on that tomorrow. Leave a comment if you'd like.

YOUR TIME IS TICK, TICK, TICKING AWAY

More point form stuff:

- So, Raising Sand won the best album award. I'm not that upset, out of the field it would have been my second or third choice. I'm kinda miffed that "Please Read The Letter" won for best record, becuase that was one of the sort-of bad moments on that album. But, "Gone, Gone, Gone" (the album's best song, in my opinion) won last year, so, I guess that's fine.

I am also fully aware that the Grammys don't mean anything, but it's still fun to dissect the results, even if I never watch the telecast.

- I watched the first part of that NBC miniseries XIII last night and it's okay (and, hey, it's got Val Kilmer). However, given that basically the only good thing about the video game was its visual style, I wonder if rotoscoping might have made the show better. Either way, it was a decent way to pass two hours and I see no reason not to watch the conclusion next Sunday.

- My computer is making a godawful buzzing noise as I type this.

Movies I've seen in theatres so far this year:

- Curious Case of Benjamin Button: It's kinda long (though it changes enough that I never got bored), it's super-sentimental and the end bit is sort of inane when you get down to it but I liked it a lot even so. The slow-mo and lens-flare antics were outside of Fincher's usual enviroment but he worked well-enough with them, and the romance in it was the sort of meta-physical, totally unrealistic nonsense that I dig. And that scene with the piano near the end (no spoilers) nearly brought me to tears.

- Taken: If you ever wanted to know what 24 would be like with Liam Neeson as Jack Bauer, this is the movie for you. The action was solid and frenetic without being confusing, Liam Neeson was a pretty convincing badass and the story was solid-if-formuliac with enough turns to keep you going. Small thing that is either a flaw or hilarious, depending on who you are: Every Arabic person is a slimy prositution runner or an evil hitman.

- I'm seeing Gran Torino on the 'morrow with some friends, it should be a fun time.

- Why, exactly, does the government give you a T4 form if you didn't pay any tax?

- Pretty boring day at school today, I have a couple of homework things to do though.

In fact, I should probably do that homework.

Comments welcome.

WELCOME BACK TO THE STAGE OF HISTORY

If you really need a detailed background on me, just check out my Facebook page. But since if you're reading this, you probably already know me, I'm not going to give much of an introduction.

I'm feeling sort of lazy right now, so, I'm going to write out my current thoughts in point form:

- People I know are really into that movie Zeitgeist but, for the most part, I don't get it. The religion section makes sense, sure, but it also presents things that anybody could tell you as if they're grand revelations. The 9/11 section makes a few decent ponts (mostly in regards to the lack of preparation) but is mostly Loose Change-esque BS. And don't get me started on the banking part. The level of paranoia that went into that movie is just insane, and I'm not even a guy who is particularly trustful of the government but you can take that shit to a level even I'm not comfortable with.

There's also the general problem with all of these conspiracy movies: Namely, if the conspiracy is so well-organized and wide-ranging as they claim it is, why are the movies themselves allowed to exist?

- I'm of two minds about Valentine's Day: One the one hand, it's obviously commercial Hallmark-holiday BS. On the other, I'd probably feel a lot better about life in general if I had someone to celebrate it with.

- The last episode of Lost was sort of boring, barring Sayid's take-down of that med-tech. I still like the show, but as it's starting to come to a close, I'm worried that the drive to answer all the questions could make the individual episodes less entertaining. We're probably not gonna see another "The Constant" (which is great but only somewhat connected to the overrall plot; in fact, it could almost be a stand-alone thing). However, Jin still being alive at the end of the episode made my day.

- Why is 24 going into an inane "Find the president's husband", kidnapping plot? That's season one stuff; the death of one dude doesn't cut it anymore, 24 writers (even if that dude is Colm Feore). This had better be just a front for another massive-scale-damage plot by the terrorists. Dubacku's conversation with his girlfriend at the end was hilarious, though.

- "You Found Me" is basically the perfect melding of every form of popular music made by white people in the past 5 years. It's like Coldplay and Keane got together and got some uber-sincere emo-band guy to sing and write lyrics, it's awesome. I have zero interest in listening to The Fray's actual album, but this one song is pretty great.

- Crank 2 looks even more gleefully insane and offensive than the first one, which is saying something. It's like the directors went "What minority groups did we not offend last time?". The answer: Latinos and Asians. At least judging from the trailer, which features kung-fu master dudes with long eyebrows, dragon-tattoo sporting Yakuza goons, a guy who looks like the one dude from Ichi The Killer and fat Cubans driving sportscars. It's a gaggle of stereotypes and stupidity and I wouldn't have it any other way. One potential flaw: Amy Smart's character is now a stripper; that doesn't make a whole lot of sense since she was the "nice, naive girl" who provided contrast to the Maxim model-types otherwise featured in the first film.

- Coldplay should win Album Of The Year, not because they made the best album but because it's the best out of the ones nominated. Radiohead's album was fine but it was also regressive for them. What I heard of Ne-Yo (i.e the singles) was bland, formulaic modern R & B . Raising Sand was inconsistent; the good parts were great but you could tell when they were inspired and when they weren't. Same story, Lil Wayne (he also fell into the typical rap-album trap of "make one song for everyone", it's just less noticeable with him because he's more versatile than, say, Nas). My vote for best album would probably be either Kanye's 808s and Heartbreak or The '59 Sound by The Gaslight Anthem.

- I also do not care about this whole Coldplay/Joe Santriani situation. Santriani might be a brilliant guitar player but Coldplay run circles around him in terms of making actually good songs. In the words of Metallica, sad but true.

I guess that's all I have to say for now. If you'd like to comment on anything, leave a, uh, comment.