Just something I was thinking about

Once again, I'm back after a lengthy absence. I would like to talk about a few people who have died recently.

Cartoonist Bil Keane has passed away at age 89. He drew the "Family Circus" comic panel since 1960. I always thought that he was from a completely different time period than all the other cartoonists. I felt this way as his creations always got along and loved each other no matter what, there were hardly ever any non-white people featured, and everyone was Christian, there were no other religious backgrounds showcased. Also, Keane would typically reuse the same tired old jokes for punchlines over and over again. But then again, the late Charles Schultz also did the same thing, so that was nothing new.

Anyway, it seemed that the strip was from another era, virtually nothing was ever done by Keane to modernize the characters or make them seem like it wasn't still taking place in the 60's and 70's. Also, he always kept everything simple and sweet, the family never any experienced any real conflicts or had any real problems to speak of. In short, it was saccarhine, and it had already

become stagnant about twenty years ago.

And as a result it was the target of many jokes and comedian's routines. MAD Magazine poked fun of the recurring "ghost" characters and the overall "excessively religion-oriented" humor. And comedians like David Cross loved mocking the "banality and mediocrity" that was prevalent in the strip, and would often go into an extended "mock-laughing" fit about many of the attempts to be funny. In short, the Circus was often the target of much parody and satire, most of it harmless, and sometimes a bit on the harsh side.

Anyway, I read it when I was younger, and I enjoyed it then, when my tastes in humor were not as devolped or sophisticated as they are now. I thought for a long time that Bil Keane was apparently stuck in a simpler, more innocent time in our nation's history, as, like I said, he failed to showcase a more diverse set of characters. Everyone was white, everyone was Christian, and everyone always got along. For the most part. The kids would fight with each other, the parents would argue with each other, but none of them ever experienced what I would call real serious problems. Like having the kids stay young for 50 years and never having them age and enter puberty. Plus, no relatives ever died, and neither did the pets. The whole thing just seemed to be in this sterile bubble of existence, separated from the rest of humanity (and all other comic strips).

However, Mr. Keane did create something many people enjoyed, so for that reason, I offer condolances to his family, and may he rest in peace.

Also, the legendary boxer "Smokin" Joe Frazier has died of complications from cancer. I read in the paper that he did actually defeat Muhammad Ali in their first bout back in 1971 and was Heavyweight Champion for four years. However, in their second bout dubbed "The Thrilla In Manilla", Ali did get the title back, as Frazier's eyes had been swelled shut from all the heavy blows he took from Ali in the fight. I had wondered just who had ever actually been able to defeat Ali for the title, it turns out that it was Smokin' Joe. Rest In Peace, Champ.

That's it for now, I guess. Until next time...

As promised, Part Two!

Once again, I am discussing a particularly sensitive subject, but I was thinking enough about it recently and wrote an essay about the use of rape in entertainment, specifically a real shitty movie from the 90s (Showgirls). And the use of sexual assault in movie plots does not stop there, it has actually been utilized far and wide throughout many things that have been produced by Hollywood. And the other movie from a while ago that used rape as it's main theme actually won the lead actress an Academy Award for her performance, as well as a Golden Globe. I am speaking of Jodie Foster in the 1988 drama "The Accused".

The movie takes place in a working class industrial town in the Pacific Northwest, and Foster plays a woman named Sarah who, as indicated by the scene accompanying the opening credits, has been sexually assaulted in a redneck bar and runs out into the street where a truck picks her up to take her to the hospital. At the same time, a college student has witnessed the entire thing and calls the police, however, he asks to remain anonymous. At the hospital Sarah is examined and her injuries are treated, and then she is visited by a district attorney named Kathryn who will represent Sarah at the rape trial. Kathyn and Sarah re-visit the bar so Sarah can identify her assailants. Two of them are still there, and are later arrested. Kathryn interrogates the bartender, who is unwilling to help her, as he says "These guys are my bread and butter." Kathryn then tells him that his business could be shut down as a result of a felony having been committed on the premises. The bartender still doesn't seem to care. Kathryn and Sarah then go to the college campus and Sarah identifies the third rapist, who is arrested, as Sarah sees the other student who reported her rape to the police looking out the window at her.

The three men who raped her are sentenced, but Kathryn was pressured by their lawyers to settle for a plea-bargain, meaning the rapists receive jail sentences but not very long ones. Also the charges are reduced from rape to "reckless endangerment" because it was perceived that Sarah was asking for it from the male patrons in the bar because she was drunk, stoned, and behaving towards the men in a promiscuous manner. Sarah did actually refuse the first rapist's advances by saying that she had to work the next day and actually told him to stop, but he forced himself on her and was also raped by two other men present, as the other patrons cheered and clapped, doing nothing to help Sarah while she was being assaulted.

Sarah's boyfriend, a small-time drug dealer, is in no way sympathetic to her pain and suffering and actually says that she should just "get over it". This infuriates Sarah and she kicks him out of her trailer. Kathryn visits her and asks her specific questions concerning the assault and how she was acting before it happened. She tells Sarah that she wants to bring the men who did nothing to help her to court, saying that there should be some measure of punishment for people who did not help out others in danger. She believes she can have them convicted for criminal solicitation.

One of the men, basically the biggest asshole in the whole movie, sees Sarah in town and aggressively hits on her even though he admits to being married. She tell him to leave her alone and drops her keys while going to her car. He picks them up and sees the name on them: "SexySadie". It's then that he shifts into full asshole mode and tells Sarah that he recognizes her, that she was the girl from the bar that night who, in his view, was "putting on a live sex show". He continues to taunt her about being raped, until she starts her car and proceeds to ram into his truck, not once but twice. She is badly injured from this and while in the hospital, says to Kathryn that now nobody will have any respect for her, and that everyone sees her as just "a piece of shit". This convinces Kathryn to start preparing for the trial against the scumbags who did not help Sarah that night. She manages to track down the college student who made the anonymous call, and he is hesitant to testify, because he went to school with one of the rapists, who is now in prison. However he does agree to help them by giving his testimony.

The primary trial in the movie commences. Kathryn presents her case, and as expected, the witness' lawyers are trying to convince the jury that they are not at fault because they were not the ones who actually assaulted the victim. Sarah is called to the stand and begins to recount the infamous night. She remembers the laughing, the clapping, the taunting, and the pain from having her mouth covered and her arms forced down. At that time in the film, the events leading up to the assault are shown. Sarah comes in the bar after having a fight with her boyfriend, goes to the game room in the back and talks to the waittress, and they have drinks sent to them from one of the guys who would rape her. Sarah is already a bit high and she gets somewhat drunk as well, and starts dancing seductively to a song from the jukebox. One of the men has a woman with him and she leaves after being disgusted by all the attention the men are giving to Sarah. It's about then that the first guy starts to kiss her and she wants him to stop. She is not able to resist as strongly as usual because of the booze and then, the men rape her, as the others are hollering and clapping. As for the waittress, she was in the main part of the bar when the rape started, and could not hear exactly what was happening because of all the noise from the TV. When the third man starts his assault, she manages to bite his hand and escapes, running out of the bar, screaming.

The testimony ends and the jury deliberates for a long period of time. Ultimately they reach a verdict and the three men who witness the rape but did nothing to help are found guilty. As an added bonus, the other three men in prison are denied any future parole, as the testimony given by Sarah and the college student provided sufficient evidence that she was raped, and not just "asking for it" as a character had put in earlier in the movie.

And that was "The Accused". Wikipedia says that this film was "one of the first to deal with rape in a direct manner." Critic Leonard Maltin said that the film was well-done, but had an interesting question for the director: "Was the extended graphic flashback scene of the rape really neccessary?" Some also might wonder this as well. One other interesting thing about the film is that the actress who played Kathryn, Kelly McGillis, was herself sexually assaulted in the early 80's, and she later said that it inspired her to take the role in the movie. On a side note, she has been married twice and has two children, and she came out as a lesbian in 2009. Interestingly, Jodie Foster is also a lesbian, and once said that she was romantically involved with a Hollywood producer since the early 90's, but has only recently acknowledged her homosexuality. Makes no difference to me, they both gave really great performances in this movie.

Anyway, there were a few other movies I know of that used rape in them, but they were not the primary focus of the story. In "Basic Instinct", the Michael Douglas character roughly and aggressively makes love to his ex-girlfriend played by Jeanne Tripplehorn, and it was implied that it was at least somewhat consentual. The possibility of it being a rape has occured to me, but I am not entirely sure. Even Tripplehorn comments afterwards "That wasn't making love." So maybe, she was sexually assaulted, but she did not seem to be making much of an effort to fight back. The other movie where this happens is "A History Of Violence", where Viggo Mortenson, once again, has rough and aggressive sex with his wife, played by Maria Bello. Whether or not it was completely consensual, I couldn't really tell, but just like in Basic Instinct, she seemed to not be fighting back and was somewhat enjoying it. The twist in this scenerio is that the Mortenson character has two distinct personalities. He was one person who robbed and killed people, and then got married and became a different person. So it was possible that he was raping his wife as that "other" man with the totally different personality, but like I said, I'm not completely sure. And then there were the attempted rape scenes in movies like "Thelma & Louise" and "Watchmen". They were not the primary themes of each film, but they still made a quite an impact, I felt.

Well, that's all I feel about saying on this subject. The point I am trying to make is that I really do not like it when there is rape or other forms of sexual assault in movies. I would not ever wish it on anyone, man or woman. That's pretty much it!

Something that I really wish would no longer be shown in movies from now on

This one just came to me in the last hour, bear with me, it's gonna be a serious topic this time.

I'm talking about rape. In movies, on TV, in real life. It really sucks that it even happens in the first place, but the fact that it does is really tragic. The fact that sexual assault exists in the world and that sometimes the woman is so terrified of her attacker that she will not even report to the police that she was raped. The fact that the man wields so much power over her life that even if he wouldn't really kill her if she tells anyone what happened, that she believes him and does nothing about it. In fact, that particular plot was even used on a recent ABC drama where the doctor knew what happened to the assaulted woman who did not want the police to get involved, she was just going to "suffer in silence". I ask you, what kind of world is this where anyone who is hurt by someone, either physically, mentally or psychologically, cannot get help for their wounds and be able to bring the assailant to justice?

Well, that's exactly what happened in "Showgirls" from 1995, written by Joe Esterhaz and directed by Paul Verhoeven. I once said that Verhoven had directed movies which I liked, some I thought were OK, and others which I hated. This is one that I REALLY hate. For one thing, I don't know what Esterhaz was thinking when he thought up the thoroughly ludicrous dialogue the characters in this movie had to deliver as well as the really stupid scenarios the characters were involved in. This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen, and it pretty much destroyed the career of it's star, a former teen-sitcom actress. The fact that a young woman named Nomi comes to Las Vegas and becomes a star practically overnight is bad enough, but the fact that virtually every character she encounters are complete scumbags without an ounce of likability about any of them. The exception is Nomi's roommate, who got her the audition for dancing in a famous showgirl club in the first place, so she is not that bad, she at least has some ethics and morals. Anyway, after Nomi has eliminated her competition by pushing her down the stairs, taken her place and become the star of the show, and has had sex with her boss, (essentially becoming the very thing she hated in the first place) she and the roommate attend a party where a Michael Bolton-esque singer is present. He almost immediately crudely hits on Nomi, who is disgusted by this, but her roommate has had a major thing for the Fabio-wannabe and goes upstairs to his suite. She kisses him at first, but then wanders what his two muscular bodyguards are doing there, blocking the door. She senses danger and tries to get away, they catch her, the singer slaps her face really hard, they throw her down on the bed, and.....

I really wonder what the filmmakers were thinking when they wrote this scene, how they felt when they filmed it, and how the actors felt about having to participate in it.

So, Nomi's friend comes staggering and bleeding dowstairs and collapses. Nomi gets her to the hospital, but is then told by her slimeball boss (the one she fucked earlier) that the cops are not coming. And guess why this is? It turns out that this singer has done this sort of thing before, going from one Las Vegas nightclub to another, seducing and sexually assaulting women, and the authorities just look the other way. The asshole boss explains it's because "he's part of a team" and that the victimized women are paid off in order to keep everything under wraps. How the hell would that work exactly? We find out that in Vegas, the scumbags in charge of everything protect their own, but I wonder, just how much hush money would be required to keep a woman quiet in this situation?!

In retaliation, Nomi promises her friend that she will avenge her. She calls up Mr. Date Rape and says shes changed her mind about his advances. She goes to his penthouse and his two bodyguards are stationed outside, and who were just as responsible for the assault as he was. What the singer does not know is that Nomi always carries a switchblade, and when he thinks that she is ready to do him, she whips it out and puts it on his neck and says that if he makes a sound she'll kill him. She proceeds to kick the shit out of him for a full minute and even stomps on his face for good measure. She leaves telling the hired muscle that she tired him out and that he's asleep.

Well, I once said that I believed in "an eye for an eye", as well as revenge and retaliation. This is exactly what happened in this shitstain of a movie. Even if the cops had taken him in, his lawyers would have manipulated the system enough so that he would have hardly any punishment to speak of. But when Nomi went medieval on his ass, holy shit, it's something he would never forget. Provided that he even survived the beating, he was probably scarred and brain damaged for life!

Interestingly, the actor who played "Mr. Date Rape", William Shockley, had a small role in another Paul Verhoven movie "Robocop", as an attempted rapist. Typecasting, anyone? Anyway, Robocop shoots him in the balls to protect the woman. That was a real powerful message Hollywood was sending, I felt, and it was a long time coming! This guy probably won't be able to even get it up anymore, and he'll be a soprano for life as well!

There are other examples of this overall theme of movie rape to speak of, but I think I will save that for my next blog entry. Stay tuned for Part Two, coming soon.

(Like I said, I made a few jokes throughout this post, but the overall theme is dead serious. Believe that!)

Review Of A Few Shitty Movies

I'm back. And I have become inspired to rant and rave about some really bad movies I've seen recently. So here it is:

Some of you may be aware of the specific genre of action/thriller/drama movies that have a person or couple being terrorized by a psychopath, whether it's "Fatal Attraction" (a disgruntled mistress), "Pacific Heights" (a guy renting an apartment), "Sleeping With The Enemy" (an estranged husband), "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle" (a nanny) "Unlawful Entry" (a cop), "Single White Female" (a roommate), "Consenting Adults" (a crazy neighbor), "The Temp" (self-explanatory), or even the 21st Century version of Fatal Attraction, "Obsessed", where it's a white woman stalking a black man. This schtick has pretty much been done to death in my opinion. Hollywood recently released a "Single White Female" clone, simply titled "The Roommate". And it was crap! To me, this is a perfect example of the "There Are Only So Many Ideas In The Universe" philosophy that I heard of a while ago. And now I'm beginning to believe it!

Anyway, I recently saw "The Crush" where Alicia Silverstone (in her debut) plays a very intelligent 14-year-old sociopath who is attracted to, and later obsessed with, a man who comes to stay in her parent's guesthouse. It's yet another of those stories where the psycho character in question has had a privledged childhood and is used to getting what she wants. So when the man rejects her advances, she does the typical thing and makes his life hell by sabotaging his job and causing various little "accidents" to happen. Basically, she is the "If I Can't Have Him/Her/It, Nobody Will" type of character, and this particular idea has been done time and time again, in dozens of movies in the last 40 years or so. Personally, I think it shows a real lack of intelligence on the part of Hollywood to keep on doing the same tired plot device in numerous movies over and over again.

But if I thought all of those previous movies were bad, apparently, I hadn't seen anything yet! I also have just seen "Enough" with Jennifer Lopez, from 2002. This is apparently one of those movies which a lot of people, especially women, really like, and a lot of critics really hate, including Roger Ebert, who gave it only a star and a half. This movie gave me a general overall bad and uncomfortable feeling, I could barely sit through the whole thing. A wealthy man named Mitch (Billy Campbell) visits a greasy spoon diner and manipulates a poor waitress named Slim (Lopez) into marrying him. The movie jumps ahead at a rapid pace, they soon have a daughter, and Slim finds out that he has several mistresses and confronts him, and that's when it gets really ugly. He starts to physically and psychologically abuse her, and one night, she takes their daughter and leaves him. But because of his wealth and high position in the community, he always seems to know just where she is, and even hires hit men to track her down. She has a co-worker (Juliette Lewis) who helps her escape the house and lets her stay at her place. Slim also contacts a friend from her past whom she briefly dated (Dan Futterman) who hides her from the goons that are looking for her. She also goes to her estranged father (Fred Ward) who wants nothing to do with her at first. However, the goons pay him a visit as well and threaten his life if he helps his daughter in any way. He decides to help her and sends her money. Also, the husband has a primary goon (Noah Wyle in a decidedly disturbing role) who pursues Lopez in an extended car chase scene. After Slim manages to evade him and escape, we do not see this character in the movie again. Finally Lopez decides she needs to go on the offensive, so she takes self-defense and martial arts lessons. She infiltrates the house, where Mitch is with another conquest, and waits for him to leave for work. She installs a device that disables cell phone signals, and she also uses a metal detector to locate both of his guns and takes them. When Mitch returns, she steps out of the shadows after she had disconnected the lights, and confronts him about all the immoral and illegal things he has done, and she says that it's time for a little payback. He is amused by this, and he attacks her. She defends herself pretty well and also gets in a few good punches and kicks, but he is much larger than her and his strength is slowly beginning to overwelm her. The final straw for Slim is when she has a flashback of Mitch striking their daughter, who falls down crying. Slim now knows that she has to end this once and for all. It looks almost as if he will kill her, but at the last second she shifts her and his weight and kicks him square in the chest, which sends him falling to the level below, where he smashes a table and is impaled. He is now dead.

What I can't understand is why this movie portrayed this wealthy asshole as having a lot of power and influence in the community, so much so that he is able to send goons after Slim who pretend to be part of the FBI, and why the police seemingly cannot do anything to stop him. Does he have all them in his pocket or something? Even Mitch's mother knows what is happening, as Slim comes to her house with bruises one day, but she cannot seem to do anything about it either. I thought he was in construction, I had no idea that he was the head of an organized crime syndicate, like Sean Penn in "Mystic River"! At least that's what it seemed like.

Anyway, the evil husband is dead, but the ending is somewhat unsatisfying. Slim and her daughter are now free from his tyranny and opression, and they decide to go live with the Dan Futterman character who helped her in her time of need. They also hint at their romance being rekindled. I just thought that there would be more to the ending than that, for some reason.

One more thing: One of the aforementioned movies "Sleeping With The Enemy" is a lot like "Enough" and came out in 1991. It was Julia Roberts' first major flop after she hit it big with "Pretty Woman". She plays a abused wife who moves away to a small beach community to hide from her psycho husband and meets a man whom she has trouble being able to trust. He in turn says to her: "I don't know how to feel what I'm feeling when I don't even know your name." To which she responds "People never really know each other."

If that doesn't qualify as some of the most pretentious dialogue that there has ever been, I don't know what does!

I really hate it when I watch a movie and it gives me an uncomfortable feeling inside. No wonder Roger Ebert gave "Enough" a bad review. Apparently, a lot of people did like it, as it supposedly had a feminist agenda, with a "battered woman gets revenge" plot. Well, feminism is all well and good, but watching it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience for me. I hope to never see it again!

The rambler has returned!

Hello again. I thought I would pound out this next blog entry after a fairly lengthy hiatus.

I just saw the new ABC comedy "Mr. Sunshine", starring Matthew Perry as Ben Donovan, the manager of the San Diego-based Sunshine Center. Here, he deals with his not-all-there boss and various co-workers, one of whom has just broken up with him to start seeing another of his co-workers. Donovan's ex informs him that all he cares about is himself and he will never be able to commit to another person in a relationship. Does this sound familiar? It should, because as millions of Americans are aware, Perry played Chandler Bing, *another* wise-cracking commitment-phobe on only the most popular sitcom in the history of humankind, "Friends"! So that kind of role for Perry is familiar territory, and is also not a very far stretch for him in real life, as he has dated several Hollywood starlets, but has never committed to a long-term relationship with any of them. And unlike the five other actors he did "Friends" with, Perry has never been married. That isn't really a big deal, I'm just pointing that out.

Anyway, as for the show itself. Perry not only co-wrote the pilot episode's script, he also co-created and executive produces the series! He even has his own production company now! Well, I sure bet that he really hopes that the show is a hit (having been given the plush time slot after "Modern Family" on Wednesday nights), as he has invested an awful lot into this show. It would really be too bad if it would go the way of the Heather Graham "Emily's Reason's Why Not" show, and be abruptly cancelled after one low-rated episode!

As for his career as a whole, he did movies at the same time as "Friends", some of them OK, and most of them really bad. I did like "Three To Tango", I have not seen "Fools Rush In", and I thought that "Serving Sara" could be extremely offensive at times, especially having the Cedric character say to his not-very-intelligent process server that "there are only three wop (Italian) geniuses in history - Leonardo (da Vinci), (Sylvester) Stallone in the first "Rocky", and you". Now, I really thought that dialogue was uncalled for!

Also, there has been something said about how Perry was typecast after having played Chandler Bing for ten years. The character was well-developed and was given a lot of really funny dialogue, but it was said that Perry was "typecast for life" as a result. At times, he attempted to distance himself from the well-known comedy role with parts in low-budget independent films like "Numb" and "Birds Of America" where he protrayed seriously depressed misanthropes, but like I said, with most of his movies, he would just end up playing a watered-down version of Chandler Bing who was really sarcastic and kept cracking jokes all the time. Perhaps that is simply his lot in life, who knows!

So, I watched the show once. Will I watch it again? Nyyeeaahh...I don't know. It's not completely terrible, but it isn't exactly "Modern Family" or even "The Middle" who both precede it. And then there's "Better With You" on the same night on ABC as well. I disliked that one immediately, I don't even bother with it. Shame that poor Debra Jo Rupp has, in a way, also been typecast, as she played Kitty Forman for eight years on "That 70s Show" and had a very distinctive laugh she would do in almost every episode. Many people miss that show and some people didn't want it to end, but it had obviously run it's course. And now Rupp is not being very accepted in her role on this show as people who saw her last show loved her on that one! Oh well, it seems like some people just can't win. Or as it has also been said, there's just no pleasing some people!


More to come...when I feel like it.

5/30/11 Update: Both "Mr. Sunshine" and "Better With You" have just been cancelled, along with numerous other shows. Somehow I just can't feel sorry for the networks that put all that crap on the air in the first place. We need more smart writers, I feel. Like Chris Rock once said, "Smart people write better shit!" What about the "Simpsons" writers? That show's been on he air for more than 20 years, they must be doing something right, hmm?