"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.
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…
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.
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 cliché 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 Café”. 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.
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.
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.
National Treasure: Book of Secrets 1 ½ stars out of Four
Ever wonder why all the “Rocky” sequels were so lousy compared to the original? Besides the “Rocky single-handedly defeats communism” plots?
Here’s why: the first “Rocky” was an underdog story. And in order to try to recapture the magic of the original, each sequel had to find a new way to put Rocky back in the underdog position, even if he was living in a multi-million dollar mansion, driving a Ferrari, and enjoying the side effects of anabolic steroids. Of course, these efforts became more and more absurd, until suddenly you had Rocky in a street fight with a kid twenty years his junior in “Rocky V”.
Here’s my point: “National Treasure: Book of Secrets” tries to do the same thing. In the first one, you had Nicholas Cage, a career fortune hunter trying to overcome a negative family stigma and win over the pretty blond while searching for a long-lost treasure that was hidden away deep in the earth. At the end of the movie, he found the astronomically huge fortune, and rode off into the sunset with the blond to live in the fairytale mansion. (His sidekick got the Ferrari).
Now in “National Treasure II: Pretty Much the Same Exact Movie”, the folks at Disney are trying to make Rocky the underdog again. Nicholas Cage is back trying to restore the family name (an ancestor has been accused of being part of the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln), win the blond (she kicked him out of the fairy tale house for no apparent reason), and find the buried treasure (the “Book of Secrets” leads to the legendary City of Gold, which for some reason is deep underground instead of, say, in Guatemala).
It’s the exact same thing.
Of course most people won’t notice, because this movie is supposed to be a traditional brainless action popcorn movie. I’ll admit I enjoyed the first (I though of it as “DaVinci Code” for people who didn’t read), mostly because Diane Kruger (the blond) is pretty good looking, and to a degree I enjoyed the second…until I realized it was the exact same movie (subbing Ed Harris for Sean Bean) and started feeling depressed that Nicholas Cage doesn’t do stuff like “Moonstruck” and “Raising Arizona” anymore.
Bottom line? It’s a dollar movie. (Actually a dollar-fifty. I think the price at Sugarhouse went up.)
“National Treasure: Book of Secrets” is rated PG (really!) for over-the-top action, annoying one-liners from the sidekick, the distracting blond, and the funny feeling that you’ve seen the guy that plays the President before (he plays JFK in “Thirteen Days”).
This time around I have a legitimate excuse for my recent blog drought. Aside from all the stuff that has been going on for Christmas (more on that in a moment), my new schedule at KJZZ has rearranged my writing priorities. By which I mean I don’t feel like working on my blog when I’m getting up at 2AM to make it to the station by three.
My new gig has been going well, although it has been a challenge to reinvent my writing style. Up until now I’ve primarily written for print (as opposed to money), which allows for a lot of needless complexity, random tangents and unsolicited references to "Baywatch". But when you’re writing material that is supposed to be spoken or read aloud, you really have to present things in a different way.
As Harrison Ford famously said to George Lucas on the set of "Star Wars", "You can write this ----, but you can't SAY it."
Enough of that.
I’ve also been wrapping up my last semester of teaching for the foreseeable future. I feel pretty sure that I’ll get behind the podium again (hopefully in front of a room full of students instead of a web cam), but with everything going on right now, I think it best to stand down for a while. When I think about how my teaching style has eroded and suffered this semester, I think it might do me some good to take some time off.
It reminds me of my first missionary area in Kankakee, Illinois. After six months in the farmlands, I got a little too used to my environment, and my work suffered. My gig at KJZZ is the rough equivalent of my transfer to Freeport. Only I don’t think anyone at the station is going to try to talk me into going to Lollapalooza.
In spite of my crazy schedule—we started at 5am last week, 3am this week, and I’ll be going in at 1am once the show starts to air—I’ve still managed to enjoy some of the holiday spirit. A couple of weeks back, the roommates and I threw a sweet Bad Sweater Party, which featured the first official 10:30 Conga Line. Trent Nelson won the Bad Sweater contest, mostly because he was the only guy that had the guts to wear a women's sweater. We recorded the Conga Line on tape, but I haven’t found the time to put it together for the web yet. File that one under “coming whenever Josh gets around to it”.
Then last weekend I resurrected (ripped off) a tradition my Logan roommates had up at Utah State: The Christmas Date. A bunch of us got dates, had a festive time at Red Iguana, took a fake Temple Square tour, and had a White Elephant party back at the house. I think the best part was when all twenty of us sang along with the Red Iguana mariachi duo to “Feliz Navidad” in their back room. Good times.
In media news, I have been squeezing in some DVD's where I can. I don’t think I’m going to write an official review, because I’m starting to feel dumb writing reviews of out-of-date material, but I’ve been watching the first season of “30 Rock” whenever I can get an episode in. I’ve been a fan of Tina Fey ever since “Mean Girls”, and she’s even better here. It’s also the best thing I’ve seen Alec Baldwin do in a long time.
(Speaking of which, has anybody else noticed that Baldwin’s career seems to be divided into two distinct phases? I got to know him during his “Hunt For Red October”/”Beetlejuice” phase, when he was really young, kind of innocent, and had an almost Tim Robbins kind of appeal. Then somewhere in the 90’s he turned into the Modern Baldwin: a stocky, icy Kim Basinger’s husband and political activist Alec, who doesn’t seem very approachable at all. Anyway, I love his “30 Rock” character. It’s the perfect use of his cold, husky dude voice persona.)
I do actually get a lot of ideas for new blog columns, but I’ve been a little slow on the follow-through. I may just start posting short random spots like a lot of people do on their blogs--I think that actually might be the more "true and living" use of the blog--but I'm probably too long-winded for that. At any rate, I still exist, so Merry Christmas, if I don’t post again before the big day.
If by chance you have trouble sleeping this week, and you lay awake around 2:30am, worrying about bills and relationships and local politics, think of me. I'm the guy out on I-80, quietly driving through the night toward a lonely TV station that rests aside a road named for an aviator who was lost over the Pacific Ocean.
During the year I spent as movie critic for the school paper at USU, I learned one thing: it’s a lot harder to write a review of a good movie than a bad one. Luckily I had plenty of bad movies to review that year, and in those cases the challenge was to reign in the bitter disdain I felt after watching them. But when movies like “Big Fish”, “Intolerable Cruelty” and “Master and Commander” came along, I just didn’t have much to say.
“Dan in Real Life” was a great movie. I loved everything from the actors to the setting to the soundtrack to the story itself. I loved the running gags and the attention to detail that can make a funny movie into a classic movie. I loved Steve Carell’s portrayal of an everyman you can genuinely feel for, and totally forgive for his faults because you know he doesn’t have a vindictive bone in his body. I loved the fact that the film was about good people trying to do the right thing in spite of themselves.
Very simply, “Dan in Real Life” is about a widower columnist (Carell) who leaves the city with his three daughters to spend a weekend with his extended family. Along the way he meets an amazing woman (Juliette Binoche), who just happens to be his brother’s girlfriend.
I have no idea how to deal with the women I know who are my own age, yet Carell’s character has to raise two teenage daughters and a fourth grader who is wise beyond her years, all by himself. None of them see eye to eye, and these strained relationships only exacerbate the insanity he feels from having to hear the rest of his family go on and on about how great his brother’s girlfriend is. It’s a circumstance that provides a legion of genuine laughs, most of which are painful at the same time.
Through the film, I found myself placing Carell in the same category with Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler; namely that I quickly tire of their unbridled zany humor and enjoy them much more when their wit comes through the behavior of more grounded characters. Think “Man on the Moon” and “Spanglish”. I’m sure many will disagree, but that’s the point, right?
My gripes with the film are few. Even though the family is portrayed to be very blue-collar and down to earth, somehow the family patriarch and his wife maintain a mega-cabin on the Eastern seaboard, and even after thirty years in Utah, I have still never encountered a family that cycles through so many “activities” in such a short time.
Actually, my biggest gripe comes towards the end of the film when Dan breaks down and asks his daughters to forgive him for being such a lousy dad. It’s a gripe because he has nothing to apologize for. Dan may be far from perfect—after all, where else is the humor going to come from—but most kids would be lucky to have a parent that cared as much as he does.
When I walked into the theater last night, I cringed to fork over $8.25 to see this movie. When I left, I figured I’ll gladly hand over $15 in six months to buy it on DVD.
“Dan in Real Life” is rated PG-13 for some language, some vulgar/racy bits and this really unbelievable scene where the whole family does an aerobic workout in the front yard to Earth, Wind and Fire.
I don't know if any of you actually read all of the "Professor Digs" lists and other stuff on this blog, but tonight I tried to capture one of my favorite items on the list: silent late-night snowfalls.
After a full day at my new KJZZ gig (I'm surviving), somehow I managed to force myself to grade five of the final English 1010 portfolios. When I was done I decided to run out and grab a couple of videos to reward myself, and discovered that today's early rain had become this evening's snowfall. Once I got back, I grabbed my camcorder and tried to capture the moment.
For years one of my favorite things has been to hang around outside during a late-night snowfall. I love how quiet it is, and how peaceful it can be. I used to catch those moments coming home to my parent's place and just pause in the carport, looking at the streetlamp at the end of our driveway for a while before going inside. I love going to sleep when it's raining because of the sound it makes on the roof; I love watching the snow fall in front of the streetlights because it doesn't make any sound at all.
The first time I specifically remember one of these moments was one night after my evening History of Rock and Roll class at the U. I always parked clear across campus, and so as soon as class would get out I would hustle as fast as I could, because after a long day of class and work, all I wanted to do was get home as fast as possible.
But on this night I came out, started hustling, then felt the impression to slow down. I looked around, and saw that I was pretty much the only one on campus, in the middle of this beautiful snowfall. The whole campus--the buildings, the hills, the sidewalks, the little statues--everything was covered in this peaceful layer of white, and the snowflakes fell and reflected the light from the lamps in this amazing serene way. So I paused there for a moment and took it all in, then started back on my way, a lot more slowly than before.
I'm a lot better at writing comedy than expressing sentimentality, but that walk across campus back to my car was one of the few bright spots on a pretty miserable school year. My classes were killing me, I'd had a falling out with one of my best friends, and only a month earlier I'd totaled my '64 Mustang and nearly killed another human being. But for ten minutes, I got to enjoy a little peace.
I didn't bother to edit any of this footage; I just posted it as is, because I want to catch the feel I'm trying to describe as much as possible. I don't know if it worked or not--you can kind of hear the camera noise, so it's not totally quiet. (You can also see where I almost fall off my porch).
Anyhow, enjoy. Looks like Christmas is almost here.
The majority of my musical education came through the speakers of my family’s maroon 1983 Honda Accord. Most of the time the tape deck played an assortment of early 60’s Motown or Simon and Garfunkel, with the occasional saunter into Jim Croce territory.
One of my favorite tapes was this album my mom picked up for my dad one year, a copy of Billy Joel’s “The Stranger”. Since the album was less than a decade old, it qualified as one of the few contemporary selections on the family menu (the others being Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” or the Pointer Sister’s “Break Out”). Some of my favorite childhood moments were sitting in the back of the family car in the middle of late night drives with the dashboard lit up in green as “Movin’ Out” or “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant” played out from behind my seat.
Last week the whole family got to catch Billy down at Energy Solutions Arena, letting me cross another name off my list of “Musicians I want to see in concert before they die/get deported/get abducted by aliens”. In the last several years, I’ve crossed Simon and Garfunkel, James Brown, and Ray Charles off that list (among others), but I never thought I’d get to scratch Joel since he’d supposedly retired from touring two years ago.
Then again, maybe he did retire. When Long Island’s favorite son took the stage Thursday night, he opened with a few obligatory self-depreciating remarks about his aging, balding frame.
“I’m actually Billy’s dad”, he laughed.
If so, Billy’s dad still has some mad chops on the keyboard. Once he transitioned from an impromptu “Jingle Bells” into “My Way”, I knew it was going to be a good night. I had heard he’d been using the tour to play some of his older, more obscure tracks, but he still gave the crowd plenty of favorites. For most of the night he mined his early catalog, which worked out great for me, since he wound up playing over half of the “Stranger” album, including the “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant” encore. He also played “Movin’ Out”, “She’s Always a Woman”, and “Only the Good Die Young”. Best of all, he whipped out the underrated classic “Vienna”, which sounds like it was written for me personally if you listen to the lyrics.
But as much fun as it was to finally see The Piano Man in action live, the highlight of the evening may have come from one of his roadies. About halfway through the set Billy announced that his next song would feature a member of the road crew, a longtime roadie named “Chainsaw”. With that, the band kicked back into gear, and for the next five minutes a short heavy-set guy in shorts, a T-shirt and military boots stalked back and forth across the stage while sneering at the audience and screaming the lyrics to AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”.
More of the good old hits followed, like “New York State of Mind”, “You May Be Right” and “Don’t Ask Me Why”, as well as his newer hits like “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and “River of Dreams”. I was happy to have him play “It’s Only Rock and Roll To Me” as well. Most of all it was just great to have the whole family there to see it. As much as they influenced my love of music all these years, they have only been along to see a few of the acts in the flesh.
After a full night of great hits and little Christmas carol ditties, Billy capped things off with “Piano Man”, and even let the crowd sing the chorus on their own before waving goodbye and finishing with a bit of trademark New York advice: “Don’t take any s--- from anybody.”
Billy sure didn’t that night. And he didn’t give any either.
Last weekend while everyone else was watching the annual BYU-Utah football game, I was up in Farmington with my buddy Dan, working on a couple of interviews for upcoming film projects. In the process, we figured out how to import old VHS footage directly into my computer.
With my newfound techno-power in hand, I started digging through some of my old VHS tapes to see what kinds of old gems I could come up with. Here's a sample of what I found:
1. "If You Could Hie to Kolob" (electric)
When my buddy Breto and I started putting together our first band back in '98, we mostly played along to original riffs he'd plucked out on acoustic guitars during his mission in London. He also picked out the tune to that astro-physics classic hymn, "If You Could Hie to Kolob". Once we added electricity and drums, we discovered that "Kolob" is a killer track, so we added a few ward members and filmed the following for the 2nd Stake Film Festival in the summer of '99. Watch for the "Blair Witch Project" reference at the very end.
2. "Dung Beetle", Zebedee Coltrane
A few months earlier, Breto and I had debuted our first real band (Zebedee Coltrane...lifted from an obscure Doctrine and Covenants reference) at the U32 Talent Show. After months of practice, we decided to go with Breto's original song "Dung Beetle". Here's our first performance (Breto's the tall guy in the hat):
3. "UTA Documentary"
This "man on the street" piece was shot for a public relations course I was taking at the U back in spring of '99. I wandered around downtown Salt Lake with my sidekick Sean (a bass player for a speed metal band at the time) interviewing random bus users. Naturally, we targeted the most colorful prospects. Regretfully, we had to edit out their best comments.
I still can't believe I let my hair get this long...
4. "Jumping Jack Flash", Lionel Ritchie
Before my sister took off on a study abroad to New Zealand back in 2003, she held a Variety Show fund raiser with her best friend Jessica to stir up some more cash. Somehow I conned my way into getting her to let me on the play list with my current band (Lionel Ritchie). The lead guitarist was one of my English 1010 students the previous semester.
When I had dinner with my friend Brad and his family a couple of weeks back, I left with more than a nice prayer story. I also got a special compilation of the entire Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. Brad had been recommending it to me for months, and I finally decided to sit down and read the first installment.
Technically, I did listen to the book on tape while still working at the Natural Resources Conservation Service, but I didn’t remember much about it, other than thinking it was nice. I also saw the recent movie version of the book, with Sam Rockwell and Zooey Deschanel, which I also thought was nice, but I kept thinking that I still really needed to sit down and actually read the thing.
I was right.
Though I enjoyed the movie version, I now understand why so many devout Douglas Adams fans weren’t too keen on it. Turns out the film adds quite a bit to the book that wasn’t there initially. (Now, to be fair, they might have added elements from the later books, but since I haven’t read those yet, I can’t judge accurately). I’m guessing most of the additions and changes were for film theory/three-act format/let’s get John Malkovich involved reasons. Think “Lord of the Rings” and Peter Jackson, only not as good.
For the uninitiated, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the story of a lonely Brit named Arthur Dent who gets teleported off of the Earth seconds before it is destroyed by an intergalactic construction crew. (They want to make room for an expressway). The story follows Dent as he is whisked around by his new alien friends, adapts to his new situation, and ultimately learns the reason for his home planet’s existence. He also learns that it turns out humans are only the third most intelligent species on the planet.
The “Guide” is an electronic super-book/manual that intergalactic hitchhikers use to reference pretty much anything in the universe, whether it is providing simple descriptions of planets (The Earth is summed up as “mostly harmless”), or warning you of what you should never do upon meeting a Vogon (let them read you their poetry).
While the movie did convey Adams’ dry British humor to a point, the book really brings it out in its full glory. In the movie, the humor comes off as cute, whereas in the novel, it’s a little more sly, and a little more ironic. It also doesn’t seem to have any interest in developing the “love connection” between Arthur and the only other surviving human (Trillian).
It’s definitely a story that needs to be read more than seen, since the vast majority of the material is Adams’ expository work on the context of this quirky universe he’s created. It’s kind of hard to put that kind of thing on screen. I’d give a specific example of my favorite passage in the book, but without the context of the full novel it wouldn’t make any sense. So I’ll just say it has to do with the coast of Norway.
The one criticism I have of the book (and I’m not sure if it’s a true gripe) is the utter abruptness of the ending. The close of the novel feels much more like a segue into the next book than the completion of the first. This may have to do with the fact that the story has also seen life as a radio serial, and may have lent itself to a more episodic style.
Again, it’s very hard to say anything conclusive without reading all of the books, but I can say that I genuinely liked reading the first one finally, and I’m sure Brad will be happy to hear that. So if you are short on time, go ahead and check out the flick, but if you really want to get the undiluted Adams experience, read the book.
It’s been great to play the drums so much lately. Before this month’s little Talent Show event, I hadn’t played with a whole band in over two years, and even then, we only formed for the one gig. You’d have to go back to my days with the Neil Diamond boys in the spring of 2003 to spot my last regular band.
Since the Talent Show, Greg and I have been getting together off and on to record some demo’s of our songs. He and Dan had already put down scratch tracks of the guitar parts, but never really added any drums until I came along.
I don’t know if I’d call it an enthusiastic hobby, a passionate dream or a huge tax write-off, but I know that Greg has invested more money in recording equipment than I’ve probably spent on dates in the last ten years. While I stress out about whether to drop $200 on a microphone for my video camera, I show up to Greg’s place and see that he’s already got a different microphone looming over every single piece of my drum kit, all hooked up to this vast computer setup in his basement. The miracle of it all is that when he plays back one of my tracks, I actually sound like I can drum worth a darn. All this time, all I needed to do was hook up seven grand worth of microphones to my kit…
I’m sure Elvis would be proud.
Well, let me rephrase that: I’m sure Randall would be proud. Randall is the guy who taught me how to play the drums. I met him about a week before I entered the MTC (that’s “Missionary Training Center” for the benefit of the random non-Mormon blog surfers who will stumble onto this piece after running Google searches for “The Wonder Years”, “The Great Divorce”, or “Mosquito Flatulence”—currently the leading tags to my site). My buddy Breto and I had concluded that our post-mission destinies would center around our construction of a rock band, and since I couldn’t play anything on the piano besides “Get Back”, we thought I should learn to play the drums.
Enter Randall.
Randall was a friend of Breto’s from his home ward, a middle aged heavy-set fellow who had built a reputation for being a…”colorful personality”. By day, he was a lawyer, but by night, he acted in local plays, loved loud rock music, and played the drums like nobody’s business. Legend had it he also ran for student office at BYU under a totally bogus campaign, then had to immediately resign after the inspired student body voted him into office.
For the first hour or so after we arrived at his home, Randall entertained us with an extensive lecture on what music is good (Three Dog Night), and which music sucks (pretty much everything else). He provided examples from his extensive record collection to provide evidence (remember, he was a lawyer).
Then he set up his massive drum kit and began to play along with the songs to further illustrate. About the only thing that could match his knack for wisecracks was the manic pounding of his drumming. It was clearly out of my league, but with his patient persistent instruction, I managed to pick out a basic four/four beat that I would tap on tables, desks, and Ford Escort Wagon dashboards for the next two years.
When our drum lesson was complete, Randall decided it would be necessary to go out for ice cream, so we hopped into the back of his minivan with a couple of his kids and set out for the Arctic Circle that used to be in front of the Albertson’s in Centerville. On the way back, as I worked on my vanilla cone, I met with one of the watershed moments of my young existence.
As we drove east on Pages Lane through the quiet evening, still talking about the finer points of rock and roll, Randall suddenly lurched the minivan into the Dick’s Market parking lot and stopped.
“I’m sorry,” he declared, “I have to do this.”
Breto and I watched in confusion as Randall reached over and turned up his car stereo as loud as it would go, then stepped out of the minivan and faced the street. As numerous commuters drove by and looked over in perplexed curiosity, Randall gyrated his hips, waved his arms, and lip-synched to the Elvis Presley classic, “Burnin’ Love”.
I can’t quite imagine what people must have made of this portly fellow who dancing at them at the side of the road, as he’d point at their passing cars and rock his knees when they’d go by, especially since they couldn’t hear the music he was doing it to. But inside the minivan, Breto and I could hear the music, and we saw a thing of divine, albeit twisted beauty. It was a joyous statement of anti-social enthusiasm. In a way, I saw what I wanted to be when I grew up.
When we returned to his house afterward, Randall matched his eccentricity with his generosity, and gave me his copy of the Blind Faith album from 1969. I was especially grateful because it was the alternate edition that had the photo of the band on the cover instead of the photo of the naked chick holding the airplane.
Three days later, after listening to “Presence of the Lord” three-dozen times, I entered the MTC, and put Elvis, the drums, and my dreams of rock and roll superstardom on hold. When I got back, I made a couple more visits to Randall’s house to fine-tune my developing skills and listen to more cool music. Then he took a job in Nevada and moved away, and I haven’t seen him since. I got word a couple of years ago that he took another job in Utah, and was back in the area, but I haven’t seen him yet. I should probably look him up. It’s been a while since I’ve had some ice cream.
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 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.
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. 
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:
