Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Cool beans.

"Hot Rod"
...One star out of Four?
...Three stars out of Four?

I don’t know where this review fits. This film is already on DVD, so it’s not a new release. But in spite of a soundtrack that features 80’s butt rock kings Europe so prominently, I can’t call it a retro review, either. All I know is I have to write about this movie.

“Hot Rod” is simultaneously one of the worst and funniest movies I’ve ever seen. It is compelling for the incalculable co-existence of its sheer idiocy and brilliant zaniness. I bought this movie.

“Hot Rod” is a less-sophisticated knock-off of “Napoleon Dynamite”, if you can wrap your head around that one. Somehow the main characters in the world of “Hot Rod” are even more stupid and disconnected from reality than Jared Hess’s beloved Prestonites, yet like Napoleon and his ilk, there are enough moments of comic gold that you wind up loving the whole thing. At least I do, and I usually have much better taste in movies than other people.

The story? OK, “Hot Rod” is about a loser Napoleon Dynamite look-a-like that longs for a career as a stuntman so he can both pay tribute to his deceased father and win the respect of the stepfather that recognizes him for the nitwit that he is. Specifically, “Rod” wants to jump fifteen school buses with his moped so he can raise enough money to pay for the heart transplant that will get his step dad into good enough health to allow Rod to beat him back into a pulp, thus winning the desired respect.

Yeah.

On the one hand, this film is such an atrocious rip-off of “Napoleon Dynamite” that a member of Rod’s stunt team is named “Rico”. On the other, this film contains perhaps the greatest homage to “Footloose” ever to grace the silver screen.

On one hand, this film is completely unpredictable, veering off onto bizarre tangents like the scene where Rod and his stepbrother fill sixty seconds of screen time with the phrase “Cool Beans”. On the other hand, this tangent was probably inserted into the film mostly to extend the already short screen time.

On yet another hand, Andy Samburg plays Rod with a delicacy that can only be described as “not delicate”. At the same time, his character ultimately decides to eschew the typical sappy ending most comedies stumble their way into, and instead gives the audience a conclusion that is more satisfying, realistic, and funny. And this ending involves crapping one’s pants.

Worst of all, the leading lady in “Hot Rod” is an actress named Isla Fisher, the token “beautiful girl-next-door who would never in a million years have any interest in Rod whatsoever yet seems incalculably drawn to him and only has to break up with Gob from ‘Arrested Development’ and his red Corvette in order to make it happen.” Fisher also happens to have an adorable Scottish accent in real life. She also happens to be married to this man:



I don’t know what else to even say.

“Hot Rod” is rated PG-13 for some great comic violence, some pretty good comic violence, some mediocre comic violence, some absolutely brilliant comic violence, quite a bit of vulgarity, and periodic reminders that the leading lady is married to Borat.

Monday, January 21, 2008

White dudes in ties

Over the last two weeks, in between ten-hour shifts at the studio and three-hour patches of sleep, I’ve been watching the late 1990’s 12-part mini-series “From the Earth to the Moon”. I’ve developed the habit in recent years of having to watch something on TV whenever I eat, so it’s nice to have something on DVD to watch in 23 or 44 minute blocks instead of wasting an hour and a half for a full movie.

The series was put together by Ron Howard, who also did “Apollo 13” a few years earlier, but this series reminds me more of “The Right Stuff”, the 1983 film that told the story of the original Mercury astronauts. The Mercury astronauts were given the task of just getting us into space, and focused on the stories of Alan Shepherd’s first American space flight, John Glenn’s first orbit, and a celebratory banquet hosted by Lyndon Johnson that featured a fan dancer at the end. Howard’s series touches on their stories, but puts the emphasis on the voyage to the moon.

There’s not much point in writing a review (even a retro review) of a mini-series that is ten years old, but the experience has jogged a lot of random thoughts and memories. Here are a few of them:

1. White dudes in ties

According to the mini-series, about 98% of the Earth’s population (or at least NASA’s population) during the space race were white dudes in ties. The other two percent were tanned white dudes in ties. It’s like the whole government agency was from my hometown.

2. “That Guy” factor

On a similar note, “From the Earth to the Moon” seems to be a prime entry for the “Random Recognizable White Supporting Actor Dude” Hall of Fame. (Bill Simmons of ESPN calls these people “That Guys”, but in this case I don’t think that suitably describes the category.) There were more RRWSAD’s in this movie than in “Ghandi”. For example: Dad in “Malcolm in the Middle” dude, Bad Guy in “Ghost” dude, Goodwin the “Other” from “Lost” dude, Kevin Pollack dude, Ron Howard’s Little Brother dude, The Teacher from “Summer School” dude…and the list goes on.

3. “Right Stuff” factor

One of the biggest challenges in watching the mini-series was keeping track of the cast changes from “The Right Stuff”. I’m used to Scott Glenn being Alan Shepherd and Ed Harris being John Glenn (which was confusing enough the first time), but now everyone is different. I know that Gordo Cooper looks familiar, but he’s not Dennis Quaid anymore. And Chuck Yeager isn’t in the new mini-series, so he can still be Sam Shepherd.

4. Faked Moon landing

During my second year at USU one of my roommates showed me this one-hour special on how they “faked” the moon landing. He wasn’t a conspiracy theorist—though he was Canadian—but it was an interesting little piece of X-Files-esque work that basically said that the moon landing was fake because if you look at the footage the US flag is waving in the wind, and there isn’t any atmosphere on the moon, so there couldn’t be any wind blowing it, therefore the whole thing is a fraud and over ten years NASA spent 50 trillion dollars and man hours ordering pizza and shooting off rockets into Outer Mongolia before hustling Neil Armstrong onto a sound stage in 1969.

5. Rekindled passion for space

Even though my current career path has taken me down a more media-humanities-based road, watching “From the Earth to the Moon” reminded me of how cool the whole space exploration thing is, and how much I loved it as a kid. I’m sure a lot of it had to do with “Star Wars”, but that interest and awe was fostered by childhood trips to the Hansen Planetarium, where I would stare at posters of Jupiter and all of its moons and come to the conclusion that I would inevitably wind up a starship captain when I grew up.

The most powerful of these images was a shot I came across in one of my science books of a simple red rock landscape that looked like it could have been taken down in southern Utah (and probably was, by a crew of pizza-eating white dudes in ties, right?). There was nothing extraordinary about the image itself—it was hardly an Ansel Adams—other than the fact that it was taken on the surface of Mars.

Let me repeat for emphasis: the photo was taken on THE SURFACE OF FRIGGIN' MARS.

This isn’t an image taken from a huge telescope that lets you peek at the Red Spot of Jupiter, which is a huge storm system so many times larger than the Earth. It isn’t even the surface of the moon. This is Ray Bradbury’s dream. This is what you would see if you actually LANDED on Mars, opened the door, and stepped outside for a stretch. I don’t know if I’m making myself totally clear, but that just amazes me. When I saw the photos from the Viking lander, I just thought they were the coolest thing ever.

Over time my visits to the Planetarium were less nerd-based and more “hey, I need to do something on a date Friday”-based, and eventually they closed the Hansen Planetarium and opened up the elaborate-but-lacking-in-historic-personality Clark Planetarium over at the Gateway. So I still have a place to go on dates, and I can still satisfy the inner geek, so I’ve got that going for me. I am a little disappointed that our 21st century reality hasn’t quite measured up to the splendor of the space-traveling flying car future of my youth, but our society has advanced in other important ways. You know, like being able to take little pictures with my cell phone and iPods and microwave pizza and stuff.

Maybe NASA can figure out how to make Bob Kellersburger’s Beef Jerky…

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Starting Five: Best Bad Songs

There are two kinds of bad songs. The first kind are the bad songs you hate, songs that make you instinctively reach for the dial or hit “skip” whenever their first horrible pangs brush your eardrums. Coming off the Christmas season, the first of these songs that springs to mind is Paul McCartney’s “Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time”, though you could also include pretty much any country song that’s come out since 1980 as well. Very simply, these are bad songs you don’t enjoy listening to.

The second category is reserved for bad songs you do like to listen to, even if it’s only in a sick, “you’ve gotta hear this” kind of way. These are songs that were originally meant to be taken seriously, until their meanings dawn on you and you just can’t listen to them with a straight face anymore. The songs might be catchy, but the lyrics are just too darn stupid to ignore. But you’ve got to love them anyway.

Here are the best of the second category:

Point Guard: Neil Diamond, “I Am I Said”

I credit Dave Barry for bringing this one to light. There’s really no other musician that inspires the same degree of dual love and disdain as Mr. Diamond. His style is his style, and you either love it for what it is or you despise it for the exact same reason. As for me and my house, I love it.

Neil’s style gives many of his hits a singular quirkiness, but for me “I Am, I Said” gets the crown for this list. It’s another one of those inspiring “me against the world” type of ballads, with a sweeping chorus and building crescendos. But…there’s that one lyric in the middle of it all that’s so hard to get past…

I am, I said…to no one there,
But no one heard at all,
Not even the chair.


Huh? The chair? What exactly was the chair supposed to hear? And how do you know it didn’t hear you—has it responded differently when it has heard your anguished midnight cries in the past? Does it wiggle around on a short leg? Does it just sit there? Is this some kind of bizarre reference to the tree falling in the woods concept? Really, Neil, love the song…but what the?




Shooting Guard: Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, “Young Girl”

Listen to an oldies station for about a half hour and you’re bound to hear this one. It’s another catchy tune, done with typical overly dramatic bravado by Mr. Puckett (see also “Lady Willpower” and “Woman, Woman”). But only “Young Girl” has that special kind of quality, the one that makes you pause and think, “wait a minute, is he talking about underage girls?”

With all the charms of a woman,
You’ve kept the secret of your youth,
You led me to believe you’re old enough,
To give me love,
And now it hurts to know the truth…


Somehow the Police managed to get away with this idea in “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”. I don’t know how Gary Puckett did.




Small Forward: The Beatles, “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road”

Alright, most of these songs make the list because they craved legitimacy. Obviously this one didn’t. I place it here for a different reason: this song was the “I’m Keith Hernandez” moment for the Beatles. They’d been world famous for a good five years, most everything they’d touched was turning to gold, and they were just about to release a double-album of half-finished songs that would still go on to be a critically-renowned masterpiece decades later. So why not tack on a song so totally explicitly ridiculous that it flies in the face of any poor loser who has ever dreamed of putting his heartfelt poetry to wax?

The first time I heard this I was sitting in my aunt and uncle’s backyard in Logan, sitting on a lawn chair with a tape of the White Album in my Walkman. My mom’s Beatle collection wrapped up around Revolver, but my aunt and uncle were able to help me continue my fifth-grade infatuation with all things Fab Four. After a dozen or so memorable tracks like “Back in the USSR”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and the seminal “Happiness is a Warm Gun”, I hear a slow tap on the drums, then Paul McCartney wailing…

Why don’t we do it in the road?

He just kept singing that same line, over and over. He even threw in a falsetto for fun. The only other line in the song?

No one will be watching us...

We sure won’t, Paul…but we’ll be listening to it. Thanks a bunch.




Power Forward: Stephen Stills, “Love the One You’re With”

The Beatles’ song was bad because it was so over-the-top obvious it actually became a kind of satirical statement. The Stephen Stills song is bad because you get the feeling he’s trying to get away with something. Fresh out of the height of the hippie Free Love thing, before everyone figured out what STD’s were, Stills stepped aside from his Crosby, Stills and Nash work to do a solo album, which featured a catchy tune that seemed to embody the feeling of brotherhood and community one should have towards his fellow man…and woman.

Strangely, fidelity didn’t seem to be one of those hippie virtues…

And there’s a rose in a fisted glove,
And the eagle flies with the dove,
And if you can’t be with the one you love,
Love the one you’re with...


Uhhh….




Center: The Righteous Brothers, “Rock and Roll Heaven”

If you listen to enough 60’s songs, every once in a while you come across a song about other songs, or other artists. “Oldies but Goodies” is one, Arthur Conley’s “Sweet Soul Music” is another. It’s a kind of weird idea if you think about it…kind of like if Picasso just patched together a painting with chunks from some of his other favorite artists. Shouldn’t Picasso just do his own thing?


Well, The Righteous Brothers had their own thing, and it was a really good thing. Then one day someone got the idea of doing a tribute song to all of those dead rock stars that seemed to keep dropping like flies. Hey, that’s kind of a sweet idea, right?

It might have been, if it weren’t for the chorus…

If you believe in forever,
Then life is just a one-night stand…
If there’s a Rock and Roll Heaven,
Well you know they have a Hell of a band...


That lyric, my friends, is the pivot around which all bad lyrics must feed. It is the Shaquille O’Neal of bad lyrics. Wow.




Sixth Man: The Guess Who, “American Woman”

Originally I was going to stick Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me” here, partially because of the bad lyric, and partially because I wanted to have at least one song in here that didn’t come out in the 60’s or 70’s. Then I remembered a fascinating experience I had at the Delta Center a few years ago (when it was still called The Delta Center), and I realized that pretty much any 80’s butt rock lyric could qualify for the list, so anything by Def Leppard, Poison, Ratt, Warrant or Whitesnake should be considered positions 7-12 (plus two more on the injured list and half a dozen for the developmental league) on the bench. There, now I feel a lot better about that.

Now for the story: back in October of 2001, I found myself celebrating my 25th birthday by watching Joe Cocker and The Guess Who playing back-to-back sets at the Delta Center. My date for the evening was a young woman named Mandy, who I learned later that night had been engaged to my friend Jeremy up until 48 hours earlier. But that’s another story.

As you might recall (it tends to pop up in the news now and then), about a month earlier, several commercial airliners had been hijacked and flown into a variety of symbolic targets in a massive terrorist attack against our fair nation. The ensuing wave of patriotism was very high, and still had several weeks to go before disintegrating back into the partisan catfighting that was the status quo.

Into this hotbed of country love come The Guess Who and their heralded epic, “American Woman”, truly one of the giants of the Classic Rock genre. The Guess Who, some might remember, were Canadian, and “American Woman” is kind of a protest song about Vietnam. Kind of. Well, you tell me…

American Woman…get away from me,
American Woman…mama, let me be,
I don’t need your war machines,
I don’t need your ghetto scenes,
Colored lights can hypnotize,
Sparkle someone else’s eyes…


And so on.

Granted, I totally dig the song. It’s got a killer riff and everything. I usually just think of the “American Woman” as metaphoric for bad people in general as opposed to one country or one gender. (My buddy Seth’s dad played a version of the song called “Viewmont Woman” during an early 1970’s high school Battle of the Bands). Still, I found it odd that in the midst of such heartfelt nationalism, about 10,000 adoring fans—mostly American, and many women—danced and sang along with the Guess Who with such uninhibited passion. Or maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Alcohol can be a powerful influence, I guess…

Thursday, January 10, 2008

The Third Annual Official Post-Christmas Letter (Unrated Director’s Cut)

Dear friends, relatives, mortal enemies, and random net surfers who landed on this blog in between a Ricky Martin fan page and a site dedicated to mid-eighteenth century Chinese poetry—

As you can see quite clearly from the title, this is the third of the official post-Christmas letters, so named because I long ago gave up the idea of getting Christmas cards out on time. This time around, due partially to a crazy work schedule, partially to laziness, and mostly due to the fact that it’s been so hard to come up with legit blog ideas lately, I have opted to publish this year’s letter online rather than spend a lot of time with Adobe inDesign assembling a pretty .pdf to send around.

I deeply apologize.

I also apologize for the fact that 2007 in the life of Josh was a complete embodiment of that annoying clichĂ© that “things are always darkest before the light shines through”. Or maybe it was, “the night is always darkest before the dawn.” Or, “daylight come and me wan’ go home”. I don’t know. At the end of last January my roommates and I were given two weeks to sign a second 12-month lease at our townhouse or get lost, even though we’d already been promised a month-to-month contract once the initial lease was complete. In April my promotion to full-time English instructor at the Utah State University Salt Lake Center was approved, then redacted, in spite of the best efforts of the local administration. In the same fell swoop, the University also cancelled the firefighter program I had been teaching in for the past two years, so there really wasn’t any reason to stick around---other than health benefits, of course. A few weeks after leaving USU I dislocated and lacerated my right index finger playing church volleyball. Plus I got jacked on my taxes, my grandpa got diagnosed with dementia, and in February we had to put my dog Otto to sleep. I was not a fan of 2007.

Fortunately my roommate John and I managed to land in a great house in Bountiful in March, along with my old friend and editor Mark from my Statesman days in Logan. The house has since been the site of a Toga Party, a Lounge Party, a Bad T-shirt Party, a Bad Sweater Party, and one courtesy visit from the Bountiful Police Department. My decision to walk away from Utah State ultimately became a risk that paid off handsomely. A timely conversation with my old Viewmont High drama teacher Steve Anderson landed me a pro-bono gig as a sketch producer for a KJZZ variety show called “B All Over” over the summer, which in turn became a full-time paid gig as a producer for the station’s upcoming morning news program, “KJZZ CafĂ©”. I wound up spending every Monday for about five months hanging out with my grandpa, an opportunity I might not have had were it not for his condition. And in the midst of all that I managed to drive down to San Diego and meet Ray Bradbury.

Oh, yes…it also turns out the church has fantastic insurance policies for their sponsored activities.

As 2007 drew to a close last month, I was most startled to see how similar the year had been to the circumstances of 2002, when I went from full-time cartographic aid at the Natural Resources Conservation Service in downtown Salt Lake to graduate English instructor up in Logan by the end of the year. I started both years treading water in functional jobs that I knew I wasn’t meant to stay at, and by year’s end managed to change addresses, wards, occupations, and careers. Sometimes history repeats itself in totally different ways.

Some other historic notes for 2007? Read my first Harry Potter book. Watched all six seasons of “The Wonder Years”. Debuted a short film at the Epic Summer Film Festival. Got to see Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, Billy Joel, and the B-52’s in concert (though not all together—what a strange Lollapalooza that would be). I even got to play in a band myself (“The Last Starfighters”) at a ward talent show. A good friend landed me a guest photographer spot at a Jazz game, too.

Even the simple stuff was good. Maddox hamburgers. Fresh salsa in late summer. iTunes. Even having a drive-in movie theater to drop by every once in a while means something to a retro stud like myself.

Most of all I’m happy to say that my family has managed to stick through a year that has seen more than it’s share of speed bumps. The Lord has looked over us in adversity just as much as He’s blessed us with moments of prosperity, and in the end the former will probably be the more valuable of the two. I hope He’s done the same for you.

See you all again in twelve (or hopefully sooner)—

Josh

PS: If any of you owe me money, I have not forgotten.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

The Fresh Prince of Manhattan

“I Am Legend”
2 ½ stars out of Four

My appreciation for Will Smith has come a long way from back when I first ordered “…And in This Corner” from the BMG Music Service (and sold it off a few years later). When you see him in “Pursuit of Happyness”, it’s hard to even remember he used to call himself “The Fresh Prince”.

Even though “I Am Legend” gives the impression that it’s supposed to be more of a sci-fi/horror movie instead of a character piece, it’s Smith’s acting that surprised me and made me ultimately enjoy the film. It was definitely as scary and intense as people described, the special effects used to make New York look overgrown and deserted were great, and the opening shot of Smith cruising in a Mustang at high speed through Manhattan was totally appropriate (Charleton Heston does the same thing in “The Omega Man”, which is the 70’s version of the same story by Richard Matheson).

But I think Smith really makes this movie. He really seems to be living the situation—he’s the last man alive in New York City after a super-virus wipes out 90% of the population—kind of like Tom Hanks in “Castaway”, except that Smith gets to talk to a real dog instead of a volleyball.

(Actually, Smith does talk to mannequins he has distributed around town in random locations, which at first you think is just a joke, then you realize he is really getting close to la-la-land.)

Smith may be the only man left in New York, but he’s not the only resident. 9% of the population got turned into zombies by the virus (think “28 Days Later”), and the zombies run the town when the sun goes down. (The zombies can’t be exposed to sunlight, which kind of makes them vampire-zombies…or Michael Jackson.)

Here lies my only gripe. I loved the story, the acting, the cinematography, and especially the sparse Bob Marley soundtrack (perfectly timed with my recent Reggae phase). But the CGI zombies look bad. They scare you when you first see them, but when you get a better look at the animation—and the now-cliched “extending lower jaw effect”—the impact loses its steam, and you wish that at least for the close-ups, the director would have used real people in makeup. (Again, think “28 Days Later”).

If it wasn’t for that, I would have absolutely loved this movie. As it is, it stands as another potentially awesome flick that got undermined by everyone’s continued infatuation with all things computer-generated.

Too bad.

“I Am Legend” is rated PG-13 for some swears, Will Smith shooting his guns a lot, the CGI zombies, and this bit where a lion wanders through town and eats a deer.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Resolutions for 2008

As I started to think about what resolutions I should make for the New Year, I realized that my life would actually be a lot easier if everyone else got some stuff straightened out instead. So here are my New Year’s resolutions for other people.

Hollywood Movie/TV Studio rep dudes (people holding up writer’s strike): give the Writer’s Guild a fair share of streaming Internet profits so shows like “Lost” can go back into production and we don’t have to get stuck with a year’s worth of crap reality shows.

David Letterman (host, "Late Show with David Letterman"): Don't nominate any future successors until you've given some young comedians suitable time to grow and develop their careers sufficiently. I'm thinking I'll be ready in about eighteen months.

People who talk in church (speakers): Stop telling me to look up scriptures in Sacrament Meeting; you're giving a talk, not a Sunday School lesson.

My Parents (parents): Raise my allowance from ten to twelve dollars a week.

Raja Bell (Guard, Phoenix Suns): Force trade back to Jazz, where he will give us needed perimeter defense.

Dean Paynter (my boss, KJZZ Television): Change show format from two hours live news to ten minutes live news, one hour sing-a-long, fifty minutes cool YouTube videos.

Jon Voight (actor, “Deliverance”, “Seinfeld”, “September Dawn”): Eat my shorts.

Steven Spielberg/George Lucas (director/executive producer, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”): Resolve to make sure new Indiana Jones movie doesn’t suck.

Scott (my landlord): Embrace certain socialistic platitudes, subscribe to the notion of ownership by the people, decide that I am the people, and make me an entrenched landowner at a fabulously discounted rate.

Mr. Gold (Gold’s Gym regional manager dude): Put complimentary towel racks back in the locker rooms where they were before Gold’s bought out XCel Spa & Fitness approximately ten minutes after I posted my gym article.

Audrey Tautou (actress, “Amelie”/”DaVinci Code”): Move to USA, join LDS church, take romantic interest in rookie TV producers in greater Salt Lake market named Josh who have had sideburns for better part of fifteen years.

Bob Kellersburger (retired meat guy, genius behind Bob’s Famous X-Spice Beef Jerky): End this retirement façade and get back to making that jerky my parents sent me every month of my mission in Chicago.

Tom Brady (quarterback, New England Patriots): Wipe that smirk off your face, stop hiding behind the Tuck Rule, retire from the NFL, admit that it’s better to be a standup guy than to live a lie.


Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones (surviving dudes from Led Zeppelin): resolve to tour again only if you make a stop in Salt Lake City and provide six front row tickets to a special guy in Utah that shaves his head, digs the Zep and doesn’t want to have to wait in line or manage a dozen different browsers to compete for the chance to shell out $500 for a ticket to a concert he’s going to have to fly across the country to attend.

Wal-Mart Clerks (evil empire employees): When you bag my groceries, turn the rotating bag dispenser counter-clockwise so I can pull the bags off quicker instead of having to wait for them, or worry that I've left any of my groceries behind because you didn't rotate the thing all the way around when you finished my order.

Phil Knight (CEO, Nike shoes and other stuff): Re-issue enough pairs of Air Jordan IV's and VI's that I don't have to camp out in front of Foot Locker and spend $300 a pair to get them, then feel like an idiot when I actually wear them on a basketball court.

Utah Drivers (people who park in the fast lane): Learn to look in your rear-view mirrors, use your turn signal, and stay in between the white dashed lines; or, if that proves too much of a challenge, just get your Cafe Rio delivered.

Ross Anderson (former Mayor, Salt Lake City): Eat Jon Voight's shorts.

Larry Miller (Owner, Utah Jazz, my boss boss): Have your car people acquire a BMW dealer that will allow all LHM employees to pick up a black ’08 BMW M5 for about five grand.

Wounded Mosquito Readers (you): Resolve to make more frequent comments on WM blog posts so Josh has more ideas for future posts and doesn’t have to dream up new ideas while he’s trying to get used to a job that currently gets him to the office at 3AM every morning.

Evangeline Lilly (actress, “Lost”): If things with Tautou don’t work out, ditch Hobbit, move back to the mainland, join LDS church, etc., etc., etc.