Adventures in WTF?! - Casting Dr. Uwe Boll's Far Cry

Is there anyone working in movies today who inspires as much joy as Dr. Uwe Boll? I might be crazy about Michael Mann, I may think Brad Bird is a master who doesn't get enough praise, and I will happily rave about David Fincher until I pass out from lack of inhaling, but they themselves, though fine men, won't ever do anything as entertaining as this.



Though the Michael Bay comment makes me cry a bit, Dr. Boll delivers again. He needs to keep making movies just so he can keep getting pissed about the criticisms. Whenever he does he always reacts in the most entertaining ways. I'll even watch Postal, seeing as he thinks this is the movie he will be remembered for. I'm interested to see what he cooks up. Seriously! I'll give anyone a chance. Or five.

I'm particularly happy with his casting for his adaptation of Far Cry. The game was okay, a better than average FPS that got wildly overpraised on release (though I will grant that the PC version might be more fun than the Xbox transfer). Though I'm not totally crazy about it, it held my attention for a few hours, and can be adapted into a standard action plot very well. If you've not played it, it's best summed up as Commando meets The Island of Doctor Moreau, though sadly that doesn't mean it features cameos from Vernon Wells in chainmail or Val Kilmer impersonating Marlon Brando. You just run around with special powers, slashing bad guys up and driving jeeps over exploding bridges. As I say, fun, but nothing mindblowing.


Unlike Dr. Boll's new movie adaptation, I'm sure. The casting is mostly predictable; it features Boll regulars Michael Paré, Chris Coppola, Carrie Genzel, Ralf Moeller, and many other Canadian actors who, from a quick check of their IMDb pages, seem to appear in lots of the same stuff together. Nevertheless, it does seem that he has managed to create a little repertory of actors who are willing to appear in his movies, which, in a way, means he has a lot more in common with Preston Sturges than one might have believed possible (Dr. Boll, if you ever read this, you are free to quote me comparing you to Preston Sturges). That's all well and good, but the one bit of casting that amazed me the most was an appearance by famed cantankerous chef Anthony Bourdain as a scientist. I was so confuzzled by this, but thankfully this YouTube clip clears it all up.



Shades of Caruso approves! Bourdain has occasionally annoyed us in the past, but for his wonderfully entertaining book Kitchen Confidential, his highly recommended (by Canyon; I've yet to read it) Salon article about the bombing of Lebanon, and for the unbelievably great steak we ate at Les Halles last year, he has more than earned our admiration and overshadowed any minor doubts we have had about him. I mean it, that steak was magnificent. Even though that clip shows Bourdain's ultimate fate within the movie, I'm still weirdly psyched about it. That doesn't mean I'm ready to face Dr. Boll's fantasy epic In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale: Search For The Sword of Budnork: Adventures Into Adventure: DragonFable IV: Into The Dungeon Of Despair: ChivalryQuest Of Honour or whatever the hell the title is, though. Sorry, Doc.

A Large List Of Movies I Enjoyed This Year (Updated With Canyon's Picks So It's Even Larger!)

Happy New Year, denizens of the internet! The holiday season is over, unhappy workers are returning to their nasty offices, and I'm cleaning the house. But, before I get into the rest of it, here is an absurdly long list that has missed off a million things either because we've not seen certain films that stand a good chance of getting on here (Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood, Tekkon Kinkreet, Rescue Dawn, etc.), and because I'm forgetful. There was a supporting actor performance this year that I loved but I can't remember who it was now. That's as annoying as later remembering that I wanted to give music of the year shout-outs to Tenacious D's Master Exploder (song of the decade) and Steven Seagal's album Mojo Priest (not the hilarious hubristic disaster people expected it to be; I actually quite like it).

Anyway, here is as complete a list as I can make. Note that the worst film winner is not yet decided. Over the next few days I intend to decide who should win this coveted prize with a Worst Film of 2007 Face/Off special! So stay tuned. Also, I'm hoping that at some point Canyon will include her best and worsts of the year. I'm not 100% sure what her list will look like, though I get the feeling it will be fairly different. I look forward to reading it.

Favourite movies of the year:


1=: Zodiac - A perfect movie about an obsessive quest made by an obsessive perfectionist.
1=: Ratatouille - A perfect movie about a perfectionist and the obsessive quest for perfection.
2: The Bourne Ultimatum - Like being beaten up by a film. But in a good way. Best threequel ever, best action film of the decade.
3: Black Book - Moral quagmires, betrayal, sex, death, twists, violence, blonde women being mistreated by the world but keeping their dignity even when doused in shit. Hitchcock would have loved it.
4: Once - My favourite romantic movie in ooooh, aeons. Lovely soundtrack too.
5: The Darjeeling Limited - Wes Anderson triumphs again! Yeah, I said it.
6: Grindhouse - Sorry to say it, but only the full version gives you the full effect. Fuck you, Weinsteins.
7: Exiled - Johnnie To's gangster masterpiece. The most unpredictable film of the year (other than I'm Not There, but who knows what the hell Todd Haynes was thinking with that).
8: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - Possibly the best ensemble cast of the year, certainly the best photographed. Hypnotic brilliance.
9: Paprika - A feast for the eyes, and featuring a heroine that I want to see return in a billion sequels.
10: The King of Kong - Best documentary I've seen since the magnificent Capturing the Friedmans. No other documentary I've seen has made me so angry and so overjoyed. Who'd have thought real life could be this interesting?

Honourable mentions:


I Am Legend
Jindabyne
Hot Fuzz
Superbad
3:10 to Yuma

Honourable honourable mentions (there were a lot of good films out this year):

Gone Baby Gone
The Mist
Sunshine
Transformers
Black Snake Moan

Honourable honourable honourable mentions (I mean, seriously, a lot):

The Lives of Others
Beowulf
Charlie Wilson's War
Knocked Up
The Lookout

Favourite movies released in the US in 2006 but then released in the UK in 2007 and were good enough to get a mention here anyway:

The Fountain, Curse of the Golden Flower

Movies that are not getting included because I need to see them a couple more times before I know whether I was crazy about them or not:

No Country For Old Men, I'm Not There

Movie that I didn't want to like because the director is an asshole but damn it's a lot of fun:


Apocalypto

Worst movie:

To be decided between I Know Who Killed Me and D-War (Runners-up: Bubble Fiction Boom or Bust, Spider-Man 3, Southland Tales, The Reaping, Next)

Most pointless movie:

Ocean's Thirteen

Best actor:

Chris Cooper - Breach / Casey Affleck - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Gone Baby Gone (Runner-up: Will Smith - I Am Legend, Kurt Russell - Death Proof, Viggo Mortenson - Eastern Promises)

Best actress:


Laura Linney - Jindabyne (Runner-up: Gong Li - Curse of the Golden Flower, Carice Van Houten - Black Book, Marketa Irglova - Once)

Best supporting actor:

John Carroll Lynch - Zodiac (Runner-up: Chris Evans - Sunshine / Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Sam Rockwell - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang - Exiled) (ETA: OMG how could I forget! James Marsden's hilarious performance in Enchanted! Easily the best thing about the movie.)

Best Supporting Actress:

Robin Wright Penn - Beowulf (Runner-up: Marcia Gay Harden - The Mist, Amara Karan - The Darjeeling Limited, Sairse Ronan - Atonement)

Most entertaining performance in a bad movie:

Nicholas Cage - Ghost Rider

Worst actor:

Patrick Dempsey - Enchanted (Runner-up: Jason Behr - D-War)

Worst actress:

Lindsay Lohan - I Know Who Killed Me (Runner-up: Amanda Brooks - D-War, Claire Danes - Stardust)

Best hero:

Remy the Rat - Ratatouille (Runner-up: Rachel Stein - Black Book, Paprika - Paprika, McLovin - Superbad, King Leonidas - 300)

Best villain:


Anton Chigurh - No Country for Old Men (Runner-up: Billy Mitchell - The King of Kong, Stuntman Mike - Death Proof, Anton Grubitz - The Lives of Others, Mrs. Carmody - The Mist)

Worst hero:

Ghost Rider - Ghost Rider (Runner-up: Elizabeth Swann - Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Ethan Kendrick - D-War, "Jack" - D-War)

Worst villain:

Thomas Gabriel - Die Hard 4.0 (Runner-up: Venom - Spider-Man 3, Doctor Doom - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Evil General - D-War)

Biggest badass of the year:

Zoe Bell - Death Proof

Best Director:

Brad Bird - Ratatouille (Runner up: Paul Greengrass - The Bourne Ultimatum, David Fincher - Zodiac)

Worst Director:

To be decided between Chris Sivertson - I Know Who Killed Me and Hyung-Rae Shim - D-War) (Runner-up: Mark Steven Johnson - Ghost Rider, Richard Kelly - Southland Tales, Lee Tamahori - Next)

"Stop perving, Grandad!" director of the year:

Mike Nichols - Charlie Wilson's War. We get it, Mike, Charlie Wilson was a big perv, but that doesn't excuse the leering shots of boobs and butts, nor does it even begin to explain why you cast Emily Blunt and then made her sit around in next to no clothes for five minutes and then not have her appear for the rest of the film. (Runner-up: Michael Bay - Tranformers. Megan Fox is not that hot, so please stop staring at her oiled midriff, kthx)

Best cinematographer:

Roger Deakins - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and No Country For Old Men (Runner-up: Harris Savides - Zodiac, Robert Yeoman - The Darjeeling Limited)

Best sound design:

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Runner-up: I Am Legend, Tranformers)

Best visual effects:

Transformers (Runner-up: The Fountain, Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End)

Most improved director:


Danny Boyle - Sunshine. I've always been frustrated by the lionisation of Boyle, whose movies feature pretty shots and no overall coherence or concept of how one shot has to link into another (Michael Bay gets accused of this yet I think he's much better at creating a whole movie than Boyle, and yes, I know that is considered heresy. Whatever!). Sunshine is the first film where he gets it totally right. The whole movie is an perfectly sustained audio-visual assault. He can be proud of it.

Runner-up: Len Wiseman - Die Hard 4.0. I've found Wiseman to be a hack with a bland visual style and little imagination, but even though Die Hard 4.0 shared the same monochrome look of his vampire movies, the action scenes featured some wonderfully imaginative moments, not counting the Jurassic Park 2 rip-off with the car in the elevator shaft. I was very pleasantly surprised. Still got a shit villain, though. Did Hans Gruber have no more brothers?

Most precipitous drop in directorial ability:

Sam Raimi - Spider-Man 3. Jaredan maintains Raimi purposely sabotaged the movie as a screw-you to Sony for making him include Venom, and I can't argue with him. I can't believe someone as talented and conscientious as Raimi could poop out something as dreadful as this. Let's hope he improves soon, as he's still top of the list of directors capable of pulling off The Hobbit.

Disappointment of the year:

Spider-Man 3 (Runner-up: Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End, Eastern Promises)

Most overrated film of the year:

Atonement. Stately, respectable, well-crafted, pretty. It's all of those. It's also empty, features some really dodgy acting, and makes no sense until the final twist comes into play. Then it's all very affecting, but for an hour, the movie is filled with head-scratchers and logical leaps. (Runner-up: 28 Weeks Later)

Most underrated film of the year:

Hot Fuzz. Has none of the respectable cachet of Atonement, but is possibly the most carefully crafted British film in decades. Repeat viewings unearth a wealth of detail and beautiful structure. If only critics loved Point Break and the films of Michael Bay the way they should, they would have appreciated its genius. (Runner-up: Curse of the Golden Flower)

Best comic adaptation of the year:

300. I don't even like it that much, but the competition (Spider-Man 3, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider) is pitiful. Persepolis is almost certainly going to be better, even though Marjane Satrapi is not really a comic writer/artist, more like a writer who draws the odd picture.

Best schadenfreude:

The Brothers Affleck prove to a sceptical world that they are awesome, to the massive happiness of myself.

Best comeback of the year:


Aaron Sorkin's screenplay for Charlie Wilson's War was his best in ages; smart, funny, irreverent, and only a bit pompous. It went a long way towards making up for Studio 60.

Best action scene of the year:

Jason Bourne vs. Desh - The Bourne Ultimatum (Runner-up: Autobots and humanity vs. Decepticons vs. a city - Transformers, motoring ladies vs. Stuntman Mike - Death Proof, Viggo's genitalia vs. hitmen - Eastern Promises)

Best non-action scene of the year:

Anton Ego eats a meal - Ratatouille (Runner-up: Cops interrogate John Carroll Lynch - Zodiac, every conversation between Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in Hot Fuzz)

Best musical moment of the year:

Marketa Irglova sings on her way back home - Once (Runner-up: Samuel L. Jackson sings Stack-O-Lee to a writhing sweaty mass of people - Black Snake Moan, Justin Timberlake lipsynchs to All These Things That I've Done by The Killers - Southland Tales)

Most WTF ending of the year:

The Mist - I cannot spoil it, and am still not sure whether I liked it or not, but I will say this: once seen, never ever forgotten.

Most bullshit death of the year:

Jazz going out like a punk in Transformers. Okay, so Megatron is five times taller, but still, that was not acceptable. (Runner-up: the various "tragic" moments at the end of Spider-Man 3)

Most wasted actors of the year:

Chow Yun Fat - Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End (Runner-up: Emily Blunt - Charlie Wilson's War, Thomas Haden Church - Spider-Man 3)

Biggest jerks of the Year:

The Weinsteins' decision to block the international release of Grindhouse may have been borne of their fears of financial ruin, but the dismissive attitude they have towards international audiences, and the lack of understanding they have of the movie itself (individually hardly anyone likes the films, but together they are perfect entertainment) is notable. Just remember, next time they push for a film to win an Oscar with their bully tactics, it's got nothing to do with championing the film. They're only in it for themselves.

Best screw-you of the year:


Kurt Russell mouthing off against the Weinsteins at the Cannes Film Festival. Just like Snake Plissken would! Now go appear in a bunch of movies next year because you are so awesome, okay?

************

Canyon's Mostly Redundant End-of-Year List

Though you might have caught on that Admiral Neck is very fond of end-of-year list-making, I myself am not. I do love reading other people's lists, I have to admit, and I appreciate the opportunity to step back, think about the year as a whole, and organize your thoughts. The problem for me is that I often don't feel there are ten movies made every year that I will remember and really love as time goes on (the same goes with books and music and tv shows -- most years will produce maybe three or four of each). With most movies I enjoy in a given year, "Oh yeah, that's a good movie" is the first thought that springs to mind when I think about them later -- not "Wow, what a haunting, life-changing masterpiece that was."

I get that it's probably the same for everybody, but I feel wrong memorializing merely good movies in a top-ten list when they probably won't matter much to me in the long run. I guess this is kind of unfair to the very good movies I leave off, but it's my list and I'll do what I want. Also, Admiral Neck and I have very similar tastes, so I mostly have the same movies on as he does, and I liked all the other movies he mentioned mostly as much as he did (except The Darjeeling Limited, because I have been burned by Wes Anderson too many times and refused to see what was by all accounts another dollhouse whimsy-fest). Okay, enough clearing-of-throat preamble: my seven favorite movies of the year (I could stretch this to ten, but I feel a bit wrong doing it, so I won't).

Top Seven

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford -- One of the most gorgeous movies I've ever seen (the visuals in the train-robbery scene will stay with me a long time); the comparisons to Terrence Malick are apt, but this film is no rip-off (as if that would even be a bad thing). The narration was moving and elegiac and wonderfully literary, the pace was perfect, many scenes were incredibly haunting (especially the fantastic ending), and Casey Affleck needs awards shoved between his tiny Chiclet teeth immediately.

Ratatouille -- I adore The Iron Giant but was disappointed with The Incredibles (apparently I was the only person on earth who was), but this movie had Admiral Neck and I sobbing like little babies. I would have cried more if we hadn't been in public. Gorgeous animation, wonderfully funny, with a turn by Peter O'Toole that made me choke up over a discourse on the role of critics. That's some writin', Brad Bird! And damn you, by the way, for making me cry more at your movies than even one of Joss Whedon's.

Zodiac -- Another one that stayed with me for weeks afterward. A meta-comment on obsession that was scary, funny, thought-provoking, and ended perfectly.

(Note: All three of the movies above are what I'd consider the haunting-masterpiece variety.)

I Am Legend -- Yeah, I said it. I think the movie was very unfairly derided as being a typical Will Smith flashy blockbuster, a sci-fi FX-extravaganza with no brain and no heart. (And it almost was -- Admiral Neck got hold of the original script, and it's absolutely terrible, and the kind of movie you can imagine would have been perfect for Michael Bay [he was previously attached to direct].) Instead, it's a quiet, thoughtful, incredibly moving meditation on isolation and loneliness, and the main character's slow descent into madness. I don't often agree with Salon's Stephanie Zacharek (though I love reading her reviews), but I think she was mostly on the mark about this one. I don't agree with the complaint I've often heard about the ending -- I think it flows very well with what came before, and while I think the God stuff and the very end were missteps, those aren't the moments that stayed with me. The shots of a deserted New York are incredible, the action set-pieces are brilliant, and I haven't been able to get some scenes out of my mind since I saw it. There might have even been more sobbing during this than during Ratatouille (though I blame Admiral Neck for being a big crier himself and dragging me down with him).

Once -- My favorite musical of the year (though who knows if Sweeney Todd would have bested it; that doesn't come out here till January, thanks distributors!!!!!). Wonderful performances, beautiful songs -- I went on about it earlier this year so won't belabor it, but it was absolutely lovely.

3:10 to Yuma -- The second-best Western of the year -- perhaps a bit too neatly wrapped up at the end, but that's kind of what I liked about the ending, that even though Russell Crowe's actions are seemingly out of character, they make perfect sense in the context of the movie. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone but me, but I loved the symmetry of it.

Grindhouse -- Planet Terror was a perfect spoof -- mocking grindhouse movies with hilarious accuracy but incredibly clever in its own right. Death Proof wasn't a grindhouse spoof by any stretch of the imagination -- it was more of a Tarantino movie badly filmed and scratched up -- but it was brilliant in its own right (people moaned about it, but would they really want two back-to-back straight spoofs?).

Black Book -- Straight up Verhoevenly goodness. In Dutch!

Best Coen brothers movie I've seen, but which still left me a bit cold: No Country for Old Men

Movie I thought I'd hate and, much to Admiral Neck's gloating joy, I really, really liked: The Bourne Ultimatum

Favorite bad movie: Ghost Rider, mostly because of the weird character quirks Nicolas Cage adds to his performance

Biggest disappointment: Eastern Promises (I loved History of Violence and consider it one of those elusive masterpieces, so it was a huge disappointment to find that this barely felt like a movie)

Movies I liked but am a bit ashamed to admit to: Music and Lyrics, Hairspray, Transformers (and potentially Dan in Real Life, as it's supposed to be a lot better than the mawkish trailer makes it seem)

Movies that would probably be on my list if they came out in the UK in %#$($# December like they should have: Walk Hard, There Will Be Blood, Juno, Sweeney Todd, Into the Wild, Away From Her, National Treasure 2: Book of Seeeeeecrets, No End in Sight

Things I Learnt Today (Dec 4th)

1. Michel Gondry has a brother almost as talented as him.

If I were to name the artist I derive the most inspiration from, it would have to be Michel Gondry, director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Human Nature, and some of the greatest music videos ever created. The DVD, The Work of Michel Gondry is the one I would save from a burning building, as it features so many little works and touches and thoughts and clever little moments that I'm inspired to just devote my life to creating art every time I watch it (and then I forget to, but that's my fault, not Gondry's). I love that his philosophy of lo-fi DIY filmmaking not only informs how he makes his movies (The Science of Sleep's on-set physical effects), but also the projects he chooses (the wondrous Dave Chappelle's Block Party, in which Chappelle throws a huge party seemingly on the spur of the moment and basically wings it), and the plots of new projects. Case in point; his next movie Be Kind Rewind, which looks to be about taking art back from the corporations and making stories for yourself and your friends and relatives. It's a charming idea, and even better it stars Jack Black and Mos Def, two actor/musicians who seem to annoy a lot of people but fill me with joy.


Anyway, it turns out his brother, Oliver "Twist" Gondry, is also a filmmaker/animator, and has worked on many ads, some of which are quite beautiful. This is my favourite; a Hewlett Packard ad that features Michel talking about his philosophy, as well as his family.



On the Works DVD, he idolises his son and has an endearing rapport with him. Hearing him talk about him here in the advert made me realise how unpretentious he is, how happy he is to mesh his life and his art, and how his need to keep creating things keeps him so centred. He truly is an inspiration.

2. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are playing another stadium gig in London next May.

I am, of course, thrilled to hear this, but of course if I can't get a ticket, I will be very very sad and might have a horrible strop not unlike earlier tonight when I spilled a carton of double cream on the floor.

3. Do not spray Mr. Muscle Multi-Cleaner on spilled double cream.

They say don't cry over spilled milk, but having a screaming fit over spilled cream is just fine. It's hard enough to get off the floor as it is, but upon trying to wash up the last bits, I applied a Mr. Muscle variant which instantly curdled the cream, turning it into a viscous substance not unlike the glue we used to use in primary school. It had to be almost pulled off the floor, it was so tenacious. Without my wake-up coffee, and in desperate need of a shower, the last thing I needed was to wrestle with some dairy-based epoxy. That the kitchen didn't get demolished by my subsequent Hulk-like tantrum is a testament to some vestige of restraint within myself.

4. Cutthroat Bitch Amber might make a return to House.

This was posted on Michael Ausiello's blog last week, but I only just noticed it tonight. Seems Anne Dudek made a big impression on the House showrunners, as producer Katie Jacobs explains.

Michael Ausiello: Why'd you cut the Cutthroat Bitch! I loved her!
Katie Jacobs: I can tell you that it was a phenomenally difficult decision. When we decided to go in this [Survivor-like] direction this season, [fellow exec producer] David Shore and I never anticipated that we'd fall in love with as many of the characters as we did — and [Cutthroat Bitch] was certainly one of those. But I would say that, if you want to see more of her, so do we. And I think that that might happen. She's terrific, and she adds a really great color to the group. I'm looking forward to finding a way that she could come back into the fold.

While I maintain she would not be a good fit as a member of the Cottages, Dudek was enormous fun this season, and it would be great to get her back in some capacity.

5. Many years ago, it was illegal to smile in Russia, except for propaganda purposes.

While searching for information on Ayn Rand (I'm currently reading The Fountainhead in order to back up or dispel certain comments I made in a Ratatouille post some weeks ago), I found a transcript of her perfectly charming testimony in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, during the McCarthy period. She talks of a movie made during WWII called Song of Russia, made to bolster the relationship between American and Russian troops united against the Nazis, in much the same way that Poweel and Pressburger made A Matter of Life and Death to engender fond feelings between Yanks and Limeys. With the war over, Rand explained why she thought the film showed a false image of Russia, based on her time there.

Also realize that when all this sweetness and light was going on in the first part of the picture, with all these happy, free people, there was not a GPU agent among them, with no food lines, no persecution -- complete freedom and happiness, with everybody smiling. Incidentally, I have never seen so much smiling in my life, except on the murals of the world's fair pavilion of the Soviets. If any one of you have seen it, you can appreciate it. It is one of the stock propaganda tricks of the Communists, to show these people smiling. That is all they can show.

Mr. [John] McDowell: You paint a very dismal picture of Russia. You made a great point about the number of children who were unhappy. Doesn't anybody smile in Russia any more?
Miss Rand: Well, if you ask me literally, pretty much no.
Mr. McDowell: They don't smile?
Miss Rand: Not quite that way; no. If they do, it is privately and accidentally. Certainly, it is not social. They don't smile in approval of their system.
Mr. McDowell: Well, all they do is talk about food.
Miss Rand: That is right.

Also no one could look at each other, and if you had food, watch out because everyone will rip you to shreds to get at it, even though it was probably horrible beetroot soup!

In my time we were a bunch of ragged, starved, dirty, miserable people who had only two thoughts in our mind. That was our complete terror -- afraid to look at one another, afraid to say anything for fear of who is listening and would report us -- and where to get the next meal. You have no idea what it means to live in a country where nobody has any concern except food, where all the conversation is about food because everybody is so hungry that that is all they can think about and that is all they can afford to do. They have no idea of politics. They have no idea of any pleasant romances or love -- nothing but food and fear...

Now, here is the life in the Soviet village as presented in Song Of Russia. You see the happy peasants. You see they are meeting the hero at the station with bands, with beautiful blouses and shoes, such as they never wore anywhere. You see children with operetta costumes on them and with a brass band which they could never afford. You see the manicured starlets driving tractors and the happy women who come from work singing. You see a peasant at home with a close-up of food for which anyone there would have been murdered. If anybody had such food in Russia in that time he couldn't remain alive, because he would have been torn apart by neighbors trying to get food.

::sigh:: Oh Ayn, you kooky old bird! You need to buy yourself a rootbeer float to cheer yourself up. Have a dollar on me. Or should I say, as my copy of The Fountainhead tells me, have a colophon of the philosophy of Objectivism on me, whatever the hell that means.

As for Brad Bird, I also found out he denies being an Objectivist in a NY Post interview with Lou Lumenick.

Bird: The idea that "The Incredibles," a mainstream animated feature, was thought of as provocative was wonderful to me. I was very gratified, though I thought some of the analysis was really kind of goofy.
Lumenick: Such as?
Bird: Some pieces compared the viewpoint to the objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand. I thought that was silly and the writers were humorless. I was into Rand for about six months when I was 20, but you outgrow that narrow point of view. Some compromise is necessary in life.

Knowing that, I might just give up on this damn book now, except that it's so overwrought and funny. Hell, even though I find her philosophy unpleasant, and her alliance with HUAC detestable, I owe it to her and myself to at least give it a try. I guess. [Thanks to decca for inspiring me to find that crazy transcript.]

6. I'm so envious of Americans because John C. Reilly is touring as Dewey Cox.

Canyon has already written a post about Walk The Line and how excited we are at the imminent release of the spoof Walk Hard, but now I see John C. Reilly is touring the US. He'll be in character as Dewey Cox, and will be backed by his band the Hard Walkers. It's sold out already, which bodes well for the movie box office (unless the gigs suck and annoy the audience, of course). There's no plan to tour the UK, obviously, as we're just Airstrip One, after all. The movie isn't coming out on time here either, thus increasing my ire. Still, at least this perfect poster eases the pain somewhat.


Plus, we're getting Springsteen in London! Beat that, America! ::pokes out tongue::

ETA: 7: It seems my Ticketmaster account was out of date:

While buying Springsteen tickets, I found, to my great amusement, that I haven't used my Ticketmaster account since living elsewhere. As a result, my bank card was out of date and my old address was listed. I'm not good in stressful situations, and the purchasing of popular tickets within a very small window is one of the most pulse-stretching things I can do, so it was not much fun to have to change everything while a little message tells me I only have one minute to confirm the purchase. But I did it! And I have tickets! Directly opposite the stage, and therefore several miles away from Bruce, Clarence, Little Steven, Max Weinberg and the rest, but it's better than nothing. Much better. Because it is a Bruce Springsteen gig, and as Jon Stewart said recently, they are pure joy.