I noticed them doing a while ago, but that Hollywood, she’s a crafty. When it started in 1989, I was distracted by the most recent Super Mario Brothers game. And again in the mid 90’s, there was that whole teenage angst. And then in 2000, when it reached its’ full force, it was Y2K diverting my attention. But now, my mind is clear (Thank you Bikram Yoga, bubble tea and some stuff I bought from that guy behind the Circle K). And I cannot turn a blind eye to this once again. What do I mean?

Since 1989, Hollywood has decided that one man will be our savior. One man will be force-fed as the quintessential man to save the world. One actor and one actor only will play the roles which require the character to not only save us as a society, but often rail against the tyranny and cancers that plague us a people. Jim Caviezel? No, his Jesus was a missing loincloth away from looking like he could play lead guitar for a bad 80’s hair band. And besides did you see Frequency? There’s more plot holes in that one than a block of Jarlsberg. Is it Will Smith, you may ask? While he has quelled alien invasions, cured a worldwide vampire plague and won the heavyweight championship, once you share top billing with Alfonzo Ribiero, you cannot be considered for the role of Lord and Savior.

No, Hollywood has decided that the man who best encapsulates the societal ideal of the quintessential savior is none other than…

Keanu Reeves.

(Take a second. Breathe that in. Now pick yourself up)

With the upcoming release of The Day the Earth Stood Still where Keanu plays Klaatu, the alien sent to save our society from nuclear destruction, he has officially played “Society’s own Hope” in no less than 8…yes, that’s 8…films.

This is the man who butchered Shakespeare so immensely that I was counting the seconds until Paris Hilton’s turn as Lady Macbeth. This is the guy who made Patrick Swayze look downright Olivierian (Yes, that’s a word….) in Point Break. And even surrounded by children and dogs, film’s instant way of making you seem talented by comparison, he still manages to have this air of acting that is so terrible, he can actually suck the air from a room and blow it back in your face. Only now it smells like feet and wet dog.

Yes, this is whom Hollywood has decreed as Man’s savior. Don’t believe me. Look at his filmography.

First there were the Journeys and Excellent Adventures of one Bill and Ted. Sure, we never actually got to see how the dulcet tunes of Wyld Stallyns created world peace (something even Hollywood didn’t think the public would buy), we find that Keanu eventually sits atop a golden throne and cures all societal ills. Yes, the man wearing a red sweater vest and has hair that resembles a mushroom cap saves the world. No way? Yes way.

And as asinine as the premise may have sounded, Hollywood thought, “They’re buying it? Maybe this kid has something? Maybe just maybe we’re starting a revolution…or maybe they just like the fact that his triangular shaped head inspires people who also have odd shaped craniums”

So they tried again, seeing if maybe we were just distracted by Alex Winter’s curly hair. And this time, they set his savior self in a futuristic world in Johnny Mnemonic. And if the savior role wasn’t enough, his character hold secrets and formulas and programs that ruin the world…inside his head (Sometimes I don’t even have to make a joke to be funny. Savor it.) And again, we believed it. Maybe that’s why he always sounded two chromosomes away from being mentally retarded. He was holding too many secrets in his brain! My computer freezes when I try to update my Face book status, watch porn and listen to the latest Kanye CD all at once. Imagine if my brain was doing that…and it was world-altering secrets. He must be talented. He must be my leader. He must save me.

But the film didn’t do that well at the box office (again following the long standing Hollywood rule that the public is afraid of silent M’s in the titles of their films). So they thought, okay, let’s ramp up the realism a little bit. Let’s turn him into a slow talking lawyer with a conflict of conscience. And a hot wife, just to keep the q ratings up. Let’s have him be a small town lawyer and go to the big city. Yeah, this is all really making sense. Oh, and he’s the son of Satan.

Huh?

Yup, in The Devil’s Advocate, he again saves humanity by committing suicide instead of impregnating his sister (huh again?) and creating the Antichrist. All while escaping the ham fisted acting chops of Al Pacino who looks like Droopy Dawg with the voice of Kathleen Turner. While I don’t doubt Satan had something to do with Keanu’s success (I bet that soul for fame contract would fetch a pretty penny on EBay) the idea of him being a trial lawyer is actually a little harder to swallow than the whole spawn of Satan.

So, the religious savior thing didn’t work. And the futuristic thing didn’t take. Maybe if we combine the two, finally the world will accept Keanu as their future god. Oh, and we’ll add karate

Which brings us to the trilogy that is the Matrix. And this time they pulled out all the stops to make sure we accepted it this time. They gave him a not too subtle name (Neo) and back story (which is sort of like naming your lead character Jesus McChristypants). They explained away the unrealistic idea by having the whole thing set in a giant process savior. They even gave him a cool black jacket and wrap around sunglasses. And the karate. Never underestimate the power of highly crafted slow motion martial arts.

And we believed. We hailed the film as a new direction for Christ allegories choreographed by Taiwanese fight directors. We reveled in the new camera technologies the film presented. We even made Carrie Anne Moss, who joins Keanu on the awkward shaped head Hollywood Mt. Rushmore, into a sex symbol. Yet not once did anybody say, “Hey, wait, do I want to buy into a world where my hopes of surviving as a species is the hands of the guy who talked about masturbation in Parenthood?” Nope, Hollywood had succeeded. They had made us believe that this mumble mouthed sex symbol was the only man worthy enough of saving our collective lives.

Which brings us to his latest film. The original was Hollywood trying to make a statement about nuclear proliferation. It was thoughtful, engrossing and showed what the power of science fiction allegory could be. In these trying times, why not do it again? Only this time let’s bring back old Mumble Mouth. And we’ll surround him with A list actors who too have bought into this notion that Keanu is the key to our survival. Will it work? Well, Hollywood has a way of making us swallow the proverbial sugar they feed us. We all saw Spiderman 3, didn’t we?

So, it’s too late for me to do anything now. I have to simply accept the fact that years from now, my great grandchildren will be attending mass on Sundays at the Neo Futuristic Church of Keanu. Where each prayer is not answered with an Amen, but a well timed Whoa.

And when it left the air, it left, not with a bang, but with a whimper, we wondered how? This show which produced such talented mainstays as Rosie O’Donnell, Alanis Morissette and the guy from the commercial that did the thing with the thing, couldn’t just fade away. Like a supernova, it collapsed into itself. It exploded and left its talent full goodness all over our TV landscape.

Think about it? They packed so much talent and had such a laundry list of people waiting to get on that the show begat other talent competition themed extravaganzas. And now each show was its own entity. Like Europe after WWII or when the Beatles embarked on solo careers, each section of the show now had its’ moment to shine.

The comics? Well, NBC gave them Last Comic Standing. They even employed semi-famous judges to rate the talents of people who are marginally less famous than they are (a Star Search tradition). And while Bill Bellamy is only slightly less sweaty than Ed McMahon (anyone who actually signed on to be in DefJam’s How To Be a Player cannot not HAVE a post traumatic sweat disorder), the show still gives you comics, fighting it out to be the next person to host a VH1 reality show, open a Harris Teeter in Wisconsin or date one of the ugly interns on an E! show. The comics still have chance to shine, even if they’re not getting 3 and ¾ stars anymore.

The singers? Of course, you’ve got your American Idol, your Nashville Idol, your Singing Office, your Rock Star: The Search to replace a guy who was only marginally successful and died due to asphyxiation related to masturbation (though they shortened that to INXS, which I think was a good choice). And now, not only are there the marginally successful judges, but we get to see the audition process. Star Search just gave you the best of the best. Our tastes have changed though since the go get em 80’s (I think it has to do with the fact that 1 out of every 3 people was on cocaine) and we now want, nay, NEED to see people fail. And fail miserably. And rewind to the exact moment when they have the realization that their dreams are shattered. Now that’s worth a hundred version of Mariah Carey for me.

The Spokesmodels? Thanks Tyra! You have given us a whole show based on a medium where there is no speech required. It’s all about looks and body type. And while you are trying to manufacture drama by placing several women in a house, the whole point of the old Star Search was you only heard the models talk when sending you out to a commercial. While your show provides more opportunities than Star Search could, it’s not as much fun watching girls frolic in a hot tub than watching them play in a Hollywood constructed beach scene. Call me crazy but if I want to watch women I have no shot with dance around, I’ll head to the strip club. At least there they have a good buffet.

Which brings us to the dancers. And while I don’t think I ever saw a good set of dancers on the show (or a group that didn’t rent their clothes from Stereotypical Pseudo Gay Leotard Emporium…where every fifth headband is free), apparently there are millions of them. TV has given us So You Think You Can Dance, Dance Fever, Step Up and Dance, America’s Best Dance Crew, Your Mama Don’t Dance, Dancing With The stars (where the marginally talented are no longer judging but getting involved), Dance, Dance, Dance, Baked beans and Dance, and of course, Hey, Douchebag, Get Up and Dance! Apparently there are too many amazing hoofers that one, nay, seven shows was not enough. I have never seen these people. I know no great dancers. Maybe I am spending my time at too many suburban weddings, night clubs and the local Y, but I know nobody who dances that well. Maybe that’s why? Maybe they are all waiting somewhere in a giant cattle call, hoping David Hasselhoff gives them a thumbs up.

So Star Search may have left but its babies still dot the landscape like so much tasty goodness. Maybe that’s why the Arsenio Hall retread never succeeded. Because a house divided against itself cannot stand. Abe Lincoln said that.

And the Gettysburg Address received….3 and a half stars.

The NBA had fallen on some tough times. Recently it was reported that Mr. Stern was only wiping his ass with fifty-dollar bills, instead of his old standard, 1000 cut Egyptian sheets wrapped in fifty-dollar bills. TV ratings were down. Refs were throwing games to appease mobsters (in real life, too, not just in bad Adrian Grenier movies). And the dumb as rocks children who were once able to jump to the NBA straight from their sham high schools had to attend college for AT LEAST ONE YEAR. That could mean injury, underperformance, or worse, the idea that they might actually like learning and put off the fact that their likeness would be sold on everything from shoes to Beanie Baby figurines for a whole four years.

Nope, Mr. Stern got his wish when the Celtics of Boston and the Lakers of Los Angeles managed to wade through the sludge of teams who sell tickets only in their hometowns. This was David and Goliath (wait, both teams are among the biggest moneymakers in all sports…) This was Bird vs. Magic (wait, Larry Bird now resembles John Holmes without the huge wiener and Magic has enough popcorn at his chain of movie theatres to garner his own zip code….). This is Kobe vs. Kevin Garnett. This is that weird white Lurch guy against the guy who schooled Denzel Washington (no, not Ethan Hawke…). This is Phil Jackson…zen master…against Doc Rivers, whose previously claim to fame was, um, that he once was in a highlight film because he was in the camera’s view of Dominique Wilkins. This is green vs. purple. This is the Hulk’s color scheme taking on human form and fighting against one another. This is money in the bank. A series that takes an amazing rivalry (which hasn’t happened more than two times a year since 1987) and puts it on network TV. Yup. NBA. This happens.

But is Lakers-Celtics the greatest rivalry in sports? I mean, it did have a series of Sega Genesis games, with graphics only slighter stronger than Konami’s Double Dribble, named after it. It boasts some of the greatest players in all of history having taken part in it. And again, it’s all about the color scheme.

While I am in the Red Sox vs. Yankees camp of something being even more monumentous in terms of sheer hatred and the Duke-UNC rivalry being as close our nation has gotten to beating up and hating your kinfolk since the Civil War, neither of these holds a candle to the greatest rivalry in sports history.

Yup, the Harlem Globetrotters vs. the Washington Generals.

Now, one may say, it’s not a rivalry if one team consistently loses. One may say it’s not a rivalry if the teams don’t have some sort of geographic proximity. And some more may say it’s not a rivalry if one team is allowed to utilize buckets of confetti borrowed from the Rip Taylor collection. I say, Pshaw on all of you.

These teams have played an astounding 15,000 plus games against one another. And the Generals have won maybe five of those (Stats not confirmed…in fact, five may be a little generous.) So how can it be a rivalry? For that reason alone. Five times in over 15,000 tries. Meaning that should you actually be present for one of those wins, you are truly, for that day, in love with your team. The Yanks and Red Sox beat up on another and often find the word curse and spooky and Goose Gossage’s moustache bandied about. But they beat one another so often that to witness a victory by either team is just another day. Sure, you get angry and you curse the guy in the cubicle next to you with the “Tessie” ringtone, but you move on.

And Duke-UNC plays twice, three times a year at max. They could play for another 7000 years at this rate and while people are teleporting to their flying cars, each time will have one more than five…thousand times. Not five.

And to actually win five times, while the other team is pantsing you, or bribing the ref, or hiding the ball under their shirt takes moxie. It takes luck. It takes one of those cheat codes you put in your Madden game that allows unlimited stamina. But it has happened.

A rivalry can be one sided but to truly achieve monumental status, one team’s victory has to mean something more than a year of bad blood or the occasional hangover at work the next day. It must be momentous. It must be life changing. It must involve confetti.

And besides, have any Laker or Celtic been on Scooby Doo?

No, Pau Gasol was not the Creeper zombie guy…next question…

Save for teachers, students and the small percentage of America who makes their living from snowboarding, nobody has their summers off anymore. Which means that the blockbuster is your escape from the monotony that is the real world (and I’m talking about the actual real world and not your special time with strangers who have stopped being polite).

Now I am not going to give you a laundry list of the films that are coming out this summer. There are a number of fine publications which have done that already and we all need to keep Roger Ebert’s heart working by reading what films he’s excited for this summer. And unless you are living under a rock, with the Rock or glued to your couch watching Rock of Love reruns, you know what’s coming out. You’ve seen the trailers, the posters and probably even eaten an Iron Man extra value meal (now fortified with extra iron…). No, I am here to discuss the proper ritual one must undergo to watch the blockbuster. These are not your ordinary films and usual candor must be thrown out the window. The art house films you see in December Theater jockeying for awards season and giving us a chance to watch Jack Black get serious so he can win an Oscar are a different breed. Hollywood has spent billions on making sure the robots, aliens and explosions look so real you swear they exist. And we as a people owe it to them to give Hollywood the same respect they gave us (Save for them releasing The Hottie and The Nottie…Hollywood was going through some stuff and was really drunk that weekend…it’s sorry…didn’t you get the Facebook message?) With ticket prices roughly now on par with a Toyota Previa, it’s important you make the most of your moviegoing experience.

First, go in the afternoon. Most theatres have AC nowadays which will provide cooling for your skin. Plus, most obnoxious kids are still home sleeping. Plus that mosquito noise is usually blaring the day. It will also leave you your nights free for knitting, a rousing game of Risk with the autistic kid from next door or a good old fashioned evening of pissing on people’s doorknobs. Plus prices are often cheaper in the afternoon. These are called matinees, which I believe comes from the French word for “Cheap Bastard.”

Next, don’t try to sneak in your own snacks. Sure, we’ve all done it, but think of the candy magnates. Without the inflated marked up price gouging, they couldn’t routinely offer you deals at your local deli, like 99 cent Nutrageouses or they would have to shut down their candy research center that gives us things like Mint M&M’s. And the soda companies would have to shut down many of their local bottling plants, meaning that your Coke will have to travel further to get to you and will often taste like malted battery acid or Fresca. Besides, who wants to feel like they are dropping off a shiv or file at Sing Sing.? Every pimply faced ticket ripper or ex-con who refills the popcorn grease will be eyeing you. Sure they have no idea you are smuggling in enough Smarties to feed Uganda for a year, but your guilty conscience will weigh on you. Each time you crinkle a wrapper and pop open the Pringles, you will be worried that ushers will be dropping from the ceiling on tethers like Navy Seals and remove you from the theatre. And the blockbuster demands a clear head, less you start seeing the plot holes big enough for John Goodman to tumble through.

Watch the promos. Don’t arrive with seconds to spare where you have to break Carl Lewis’ 800 meter dash world record just to make it before the credits begin. Get there early, settle in and watch the promos. Heck, even watch the pre show ads and absurdly easy movie trivia they show before the show. It will make you feel smarter and prouder of your education. And you’ll be satisfied to know that you know where Jim Carrey went to college. The promos also set the mood. They whet the appetite of things to come, the amuse bouche of films if you will (and you did cause you just read it.) Plus, if you’re lucky, you’ll get a preview not suited for all audiences and you may get some boob or an F-word or a shot of Morgan Freeman’s ass (which is known as a “Preview a trios” in the rare event that those three amazing instances all occur in one promo.)

Turn off your phone. Unless you are about to have a child, are a doctor or a member of some sort of undercover body guard force, you do not to be contacted for two hours. Your bar is not going to call you with a peach Schnapps emergency or the office isn’t going to burn down cause Jan from Accounting can’t find the White Out. This is Hollywood’s alone time with you. Savor it. Go with it and Escape (and yes, Hollywood does like pina coladas.)

Now, always sit in the center. The combination of the AC, the speakers and that weird BO from the guy in the projection booth all meet somewhere in the theatre center like some vortex of amazingness. It is there you will truly immerse yourself in the movie experience. That and there’s usually less gum on the seats in the center. The Vortex of Awesome will not allow gum. That and Republicans, just FYI Middle America.

Now, watch the film. DO not speak to friends and say things like “Did you see that?” Did they get there before you did? Are you watching the film with Andrea Bocelli? Of course they did and so did everyone else. And never shout out predictions of the ending, no matter how Shyamalanian the film may be. You will be wrong. Everybody is. If the movie’s ending was that easy to figure out, it would star Ashton Kutscher. Take in the sights, the sounds, the bon mots, and the implausible ability of everybody to survive life threatening injuries. It’s Hollywood.

To cap off the film, leave the theatre immediately and let the oppressive heat smack you in the face. Watch out, the sun will hurt your eyes like radioactive Visine. You will probably look like you just woke up from a nasty hangover to everyone outside, so bring sunglasses. If you do not own sunglasses, feel free to bring a visor or some stem cells to jam into your eyes giving you super human retinas. Call your friends. Tell them how awesome the movie was. If they have already seen it, call them a douche or any combination of the word douche and anything (I’m partial to “douche sweater” myself.) If they have not seen, rub it in. Mock their inability to pay 12 bucks for a movie. Laugh at their blockbusterless existence. Then ask to borrow five bucks.

Follow the above steps and you will enjoy your summer experience. Keep in mind though; you can alter these steps to fit you, provided you stick to the basic tenet. The only exception is if you live in South central and are going to see any film starring a member of Murder Inc. Then bring a flak jacket.

]]> http://doctorolove.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/as-the-rat-saysits-summer-baby/feed/ 2 Doc http://doctorolove.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/do-you-want-a-reason-to-get-up-before-8-am-that-doesnt-involve-a-mcgriddle/ http://doctorolove.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/do-you-want-a-reason-to-get-up-before-8-am-that-doesnt-involve-a-mcgriddle/#comments Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:13:26 +0000 doctorolove http://doctorolove.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/do-you-want-a-reason-to-get-up-before-8-am-that-doesnt-involve-a-mcgriddle/ ]]> Oscar Season is beginning to heat up much like the meth lab Britney Spears keeps in the 23rd bedroom in her home (It’s out back just past the solid gold bidet and the life size cut out of the original Cooter from the Dukes of Hazard.) The entries are all in (as the rules state that the film must have been released in 2007, so sorry One Missed Call) and the nominees are probably already hermetically sealed in an envelope.

So let’s say you are an actor or actress who has been shot down more often than Tom Cruise at a WNBA mixer. You have one dream. Not to win, but just to be nominated. A nomination for an Academy Award is like a red wine stain on a white shirt: it is impossible to shake and it will follow you everywhere. It precedes your name no matter what you do (Yup, Snow Dogs was advertised as starring Academy Award winners Cuba Gooding and James Coburn) and it even raises your tax bracket (until you do a movie led the aforementioned Snow Dogs and realize that to pay for your addiction to Hummel figurines, you need to sell some Hanes underwear in a series of sexually ambiguous commercials set in an alternate universe where Michael Jordan has his own talk show….Apparently in that alternate universe, the Magic Hour was HUGE!)

You don’t necessarily need to win. Heck, if you live long enough and don’t do too many appearances on the Lifetime network, they’ll give you one anyway and call it a lifetime achievement (A Lifetime for no Lifetime!….savory the irony….tastes like Dr. Pepper, don’t it?) You just want them to announce that you were nominated and most of the time, it doesn’t even have to be a great job. Maybe you were due. Maybe everybody else sucked that year and you are recognized simply on not sucking as much (the Joaquin Phoenix theory of acting). Or maybe, just maybe you followed these simple steps. Because if you do, you’ll be shown quickly in the audience once and have to try on your best “That piece of shit won?” face.

First, determine the type of actor you are. Are you the budding new generation ingénue? Are you the long suffering character actor whose claim to fame is being called out by the guy next to you at Hooters for being “that guy” in “that Bruce Willis movie?” Are you the actor who has simply coasted on your good looks in a string of straight to DVD features and often find yourself wondering which Tara Reid vehicle best defined your career?  Once you can say you know who you are, then you can move on to step two.

Second is choosing the role that defines your type.  If you are the character actor who often plays the same type of role, your nomination will depend solely on the bon mots you get to throw around during the movie. I can venture to say that Jack Black, who is Jack Black in every film he is in (save for Nacho Libre where’s he’s Jack Black with a Spanish accent), will get nominated when he pratfalls and eyebrows his way into a well written script. If you are the ingénue, tackle a classic role. Sleep with somebody who will gladly let you tackle one of the biggest roles in literature in history (Though be careful not to surround yourself with too much talent in a big period piece…Leelee Sobieski is still waiting for that Joan of Arc movie to pan out). And if you are that guy, it’s simple….play disabled, mentally or physically. Get bonus points for actually spending a few hours with somebody who has said affliction. Or play fat when you’re thin, thin when you’re fat. Basically, don’t be you. You isn’t working. If you was working, you would be garnering seven figure checks and not rushing to get to your scene study class with the guy who played the dad on ALF.

So once the role is chosen, number three is, well, luck. You need the planets to align just right so somebody actually sees your film. You can be awesome in Critters 7: Seriously, They Greenlighted This? But if nobody watches it, then it just goes on your reel. You need the film to open at the right time. Maybe Tea Leoni garners a nomination for her stirring journalist in Deep Impact if she wasn’t overshadowed by the hotter, poutier, less clothed Liv Tyler in Armageddon. Two women in two asteroid movies cancel each other out, like positive and negative ions or more than one Culkin kid. And luck also plays into the fact that everybody else sucks too. You can always rise from the crap that’s around you if everything IS crap. When five great actors give career performance, your paraplegic turn may just fall by the wayside. Eric Stoltz in The Waterdance? Don’t remember it. It followed the rules: crippled, good script, defining moments. But Christopher Walken, Al Pacino and a bunch of other people blew up that year. And what does Eric Stoltz have to show for it?  Yup. About the same as you and I. Though he still does have that Mask prosthetic which is mad cool.

So, you dreamers, follow these rules and you too can join Randy Quaid, Whoopi Goldberg, Dan Aykroyd, Amy Adams, Haley Joel Osment and the little girl from Little Miss Sunshine and get your nomination.  (Coincidentally all of them will be starring in a new Zucker brothers movie…..coming next summer…Critics, start your engines now)

Spy movies are akin to stealing your friend’s marijuana plants: Hollywood makes money on them because everybody’s too scared and would get in too much trouble if they told the real story. Thusly, every spy movie could be the biggest bunch of fabrication since the Warren Commission Family Picnic (Thanks Dennis, yet again!) and nobody will know. Think the CIA, FBI, NSA and a whole bunch of other acronyms are going to step forward and admit how things are done. Hell to the no. So each film can claim to be accurate and load us up with car chases and gadgetry and strange Cold War scenarios and not a single person can ever call “Shenanigans.” Except for that guy over there…Oh wait, where are those men in suits taking him?

Yet with all these spy films coming 2 fast and 2 furious (Not a spy movie, by the way, I checked) you must ask yourself one question. Which spy defines me?  Which secret agent should I choose to follow intently?  There are several camps on this one. Let us, in attempt to appease all argument, first remove the Daniel Craig James Bond from future debate. Not saying I didn’t enjoy his first foray into the land of 007, but there are too many critics who feel the film was merely siphoning off the ideas the Bourne series had re-established as the new “IT” spy genre. (Some say siphoning: others say blatantly copying.) Plus it’s one chance. Make two good ones and we’ll talk. You can also shake off every single spy that popped up during that dark phase from 1985-1993 where Hollywood tried to re-invent the spy genre with a whole bunch of  “mistaken identity spy comedies.” Richard Grieco, Anthony Edwards, Jackie Chan, Val Kilmer. Not that you guys were doing much anyway, but you can all sit. (Okay, maybe you were, Val….your two minute cameo in Déjà vu…moving stuff…now, here…have another donut.)

Which means you are left with three major types of movie spies: the gritty realistic Jason Bourne type, the kitschy Cold War espionage of the James Bond type, and the uber-kitschy spoofy Austin Powers/ Flint winking at the camera so much I’m sure you have Tourettes goofball spy.

Any spy film from here on out will adhere to these three examples or Venn diagram somewhere in between. These are the examples, people. So, if you’re a Scientologist who is smiting me because I didn’t mention Ethan Hunt, I’m sorry. He’s like a good Chinese dinner: little from Column A, little from Column B. But he is not a Column unto himself. And besides would L. Ron want that anyway? Shame on all of you. Smiting me like that. And to think I actually paid to see Battlefield Earth (Receipt available upon request)

So which spy should you follow? Let’s look at each.

The Gritty Realistic Spy:  He’s either deep undercover or blending into society much like Henry Hill did when he took off the velour track suit. He’s not a blow up the whole building guy. His gadgets and methods are straight out of that annoying video game level you can’t beat (You know the one with all the stealthing…And yes stealthing is a word.) And his exploits are usually shot with the same gritty realism and gritty camera angles just in case you didn’t get that whole gritty realism thing. This guy blows your mind. Not because he escapes eight car pileups and citywide manhunts. And not because he can garrote you with a shoelace and duct tape all MacGyver style. It’s because he is SO real. This crazy behind the scenes stuff could really be happening.  He’s using real names and focusing on real problems (usually oil pipelines in the Middle East, scary biotoxins) and not some nameless faceless supervillain who lives in a cave. He’s the spy you root for because you want him on that wall. You need him on that wall. And you secretly hope there isn’t a wall, but you know better. No sex for me, please…I’m making the world safer. Or worse, depending.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Democrats, people with irrational fear of the Patriot Act, those with stock in Dramamine

The Kitschy Cold War guy: Yeah, this is what spying is all about. Still saving the world but doing it Hefner style. With a woman on one arm and a drink in the other. His entrances and exits are louder than a Metallica show at the Virginia College for the Deaf. He couldn’t save himself from a situation unless he had his gadgets. And oh what great ones they are. Invisible missile laden cars. Dual laser beamed watches. Exploding pens.  And everybody always gets it in the end. There’s no grey area. It’s Good vs. Evil. The Russians or the Eastern Europeans or the Colombian drug dealers. All of them must be stopped. And they will be stopped before they can unleash their havoc on the world. Because only he can do it. He’s like the Class Clown: a smartass remark everybody he does, well, anything that could call for a smart ass remark, from kicking ass to flirting to hanging out poolside in places he first made cool. Monte Carlo, the Caribbean, Antarctica (though maybe not poolside there) None of this could possibly happen. Nameless, faceless masterminds don’t exist. (Real life masterminds are way too media savvy to live in a hollowed out volcano.)  And again, do we know it isn’t like this? That in itself makes us feel safe, hoping it is

RECOMMENDED FOR: Republicans, the Tuxedos Renters Guild of America,  13 year old boys (because the sex is implied, never shown and once you past 13, you need a little more than innuendo)

The Spoofy Spy: Take every cliché you’ve ever seen and beat it into the ground. The only genre of spy films you know could never happen, because can somebody that ignorant really be on a major payroll somewhere (Wait…I’ll strike that from the record)  The jokes are like the plot outline: It’s Good vs. Evil.  Some work, some don’t. The gadgets are often ludicrous, but plausible. It’s like watching an old friend come for dinner: bask in the stories of yesteryear and laugh about when they went wrong. But you get sick of them quick and hopefully, they’re gone before desert

RECOMMENDED FOR: The young, the elderly, the three people who have never quoted Austin Powers ever.

Make your choice wisely, my budding Spy movie aficionados. It is a big choice and one that can determine your future movie-watching career. The debate will forever wage on and someday a spy type will emerge victorious. Let’s just hope it’s not Owen Wilson

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Sure they also spoke of hos and pigs and smoking this thing they called blunts, but they also made reference to the Hall of Justice and superheroes. I knew of them. Heck, I spent a whole summer trying to build a submersible underwater megafortress of my own out of a ripped Slip and Slide and a Kiddie Pool that smelled like a mixture of mold, rapidly congealing waterproof Coppertone and my grandma’s shag rug. And while half the things I couldn’t understand (Thank you, vocal cords ravaged by unfiltered blunts…seriously guys, if you don’t want the reunion album to be called “Live From The Iron Lung…with RZA on Voice Box” it is called a filter…Look into it), I identified with Superheroes. And Kinko’s. And the 7-11. They were using metaphors a young obsessed white-bred suburbanite like me could understand. And for that, I became a member of the Shaolin Nation.

And it is because of my in-depth Wu knowledge that what I heard from a moving car today has got me all riled up. Now I have heard some amazing things from cars that feel the need to validate the thousands of dollars spent on their bells and whistles. I’ve heard songs that should never be played at ear busting volumes ever, unless you are trying to drive a Panamanian drug lord from their home (Mandy by Barry Manilow is no more poignant at 200 decibels that it is at 4). I’ve heard a La Cucaracha horn that sounded as if it were warbled by a dying seal. And I’ve heard the children cry (Though I was nice enough to let them know I tried at the next stoplight.) The car was whipping by at a pretty nice clip and I heard it for what was a brief second, but I know what I heard was…

“Cash rules everything around me…got to get the money…dollar, dollar bill, y’all…”

Now to many, that may just sound like Raymond Babbitt mumbling at the blackjack table or that rambling homeless guy who shuffles past your job while wearing a pair of Skidz Pants. But I knew it as this: the seminal lyric from Wu Tang’s hit “C.R.E.A.M” I’d know it anywhere. I’d know it’s capitalistic, playful undertone wrapped in a glaze of double entendre anywhere.

And I also know it wasn’t sung by any member of the Clan. Not GZA. Not Ghostface. Not Raekwon. Not even the dulcet set-on-fire-then-put-out with sand-paper tones of ODB and Method Man. This was somebody singing a COVER VERSION of a Wu-Tang song and what’s more, somebody was playing it loudly, all while zipping down the streets.

Which brings me to one cardinal rule that for the sake of good taste everywhere, we all must adhere to this day forth: NO COVER VERSIONS, NO REMAKES, NO REIMAGININGS OR REINTERPATATION OR RE-ANYTHING OF RAP/HIP-HOP SONGS!

Why? I mean, they do it all the time, you say? I mean, don’t you own everything the Neptunes re-did for every popular artist ever? Yes, but you see those are remixes. A remix is taking a track and adding your own personal spin on it. Or it means hiring some rapper to write lyrics on the back of his hand while limoing over to the recording studio and dropping them in the middle of the song with no cohesiveness what-so-ever. Or it means taking the lyrics and mashing them up with something that seems clever. But the song remains. The lyrics, the basic cadence, the messages..all still there. A remix is pushing it the same way you tested the boundaries of a childhood ultimatum by walking across the kitchen floor on your knees…Ma, you said “Don’t Step Foot in the Kitchen….”But it’s still the same song. Not a remake. A remake is when a person or persons take the entire song and re-do it their own way. Lyrics, background, even the message.

Yet they do it with movies and those turn out fine, right? Some do, yes. Or rather they work in theory. Updating The Manchurian Candidate in our own paranoid present existence was a great idea in hindsight. Casting Dean Stockwell as a shadowy villain was not (what no other Sci-fi TV second bananas were available? You’re telling me Twiki wasn’t available? That “Biddi-Biddi-Biddi” sound was menacing.) And retelling classic ideas with a modern spin is intriguing: Just avoid Bernie Mac (Ocean’s 12), Bernie Mac (Guess who’s Coming to Dinner) and Bernie Mac (Charlie’s Angels).  Remaking or reimaging a film can work because of concepts. It’s like how we are all amazed when somebody sets Shakespeare in modern times. Ideas resonate. And Leo and Claire looked good in Hawaiian shirts and strange sexy corset things

Oh, then Mr. Sarcastic, rap songs don’t resonate then, huh? Incorrect. Most classic and meaningful songs do resonate, because their themes and messages are universal. You can still drive down a street in the South Bronx and almost feel “The Message” coming out of your subconscious. And while it may be great to see a bunch of elderly rappers, dressed in purple track suits that make them look like Batman villains, paired with the hippest, pulled from the Billboard list new guard on a VH1 honors show, but that is a homage. It is not a remake.  What I heard was a remake and those are not allowed.

Why? Because a hip-hop song is kind of like what needs to happen at that precise moment to be truly great. (And who wants to remake a BAD song? Unless you really feel the nuances of MC Hammer weren’t truly touched upon). You need the backing track, the words to have meaning or significance and all the while you have a producer over the scenes like an urban Gepetto. And when you switch any of these things, the song ceases to hold its integrity and its specialty. It’s like a great speech: you need the poignancy, the words themselves and most of all, the speaker. You don’t see people re-enacting great speeches unless it’s for a bad community theatre production of Lincoln! The Musical or during a casting call for voice over work on the History Channel. And a good rap song works like that. Ingredients are precise and perfect and to re-make them gets just some bad cake.
So remake the movies, the pop songs, and remix the rap songs until you’re blue in your D&G sunglassed face, but don’t remake em. Because you lose everything they stand for. If you do, you’re left with a song that doesn’t sound good coming from a car as it speeds by on a New York street. Something no amount of ride pimpin could save.

LeBron James SINGLEHANDEDLY won a game. And while I don’t mean it was like Space Jam where Michael Jordan scored every point while Looney Tunes characters did Looney tunes things or that Bugs Bunny cartoon where he beats the Gashouse Gorillas (Fact: That cartoon marked the first appearance of the over used “Ball player screaming I Got It over and over than being hit and ending up dead beneath a tombstone reading “He Got It” which itself was based on an unfortunate 1920’s ballplayer that was later documented in “The Short Life of BatShit Blind Magee: The Musical.) LeBron had other players on the court with him. He was playing a team in Detroit that has been for years trying to bring the snuggly, feel-good reputation of the 1994 Knicks (Make a basket…get a knee to the groin…everyone wins.) But his surrounding players all looked like Mike Myers during the Katrina benefit when Kanye went on about George Bush and his, um, predilection towards a certain race. They couldn’t hit the side of a barn if you lathered the barn in aluminum siding and made the ball look like the Epcot ball and coated it with magnets. The team would put up a nail biter against the Midvale School for the blind or the Special Olympics team from Russia (Though they are in wheelchairs, those Russian kids do have mad ups though).

And none of this is exaggeration. The rest of the Cleveland Cavaliers are that bad. And LeBron’s feat was that amazing. He scored 29 of his team’s last thirty points. For you math nerds, that means he scored 97% of his team’s last 30 points (Don’t be too impressed…I stayed awake in 6th grade algebra just because I had a crush on Meghan Delaney who sat across from me…She had pink braces, carried a My Pet Monster pencil case and consistently smelled like Debbie Gibson’s Electric Youth, the “it” fragrance of mid 80’s middle schoolers.) He was making shots that you’ve only seen Jordan and Bird make in McDonald’s commercial. He put his team on his back, carried them, stopped for a drink, realized they still needed to be carried, grumbled a bit and put them right back on his shoulders.  Just when you thought Detroit would wise up and triple team and force one of the other guys on the court to make a shot, he still sliced through them, often dunking and making a victory face that looked like a combination of an orgasm look and that Aw Shucks look extremely talented people make when they’re trying to be humble.

Surely, though, this has had happened before in team sports. A great player can put his team on his back and will them to victory. Michael Jordan did it so often; it was more news when he had an average night. Joe Namath willed the Jets to a Super Bowl victory despite wearing fur underwear and a leisure suit under his uniform. And Reggie Jackson’s Afro hit two home runs in a World Series game (His Fu Manchu moustache went 2 for 4 with a double and an Intentional walk, though. Always never did live up to its’ facial hair potential.) Sports are the rare case when superhuman ability of one can trump average abilities of several others. Like when Superman went against the entire canon of Kryptonian villains. He won, despite almost being permanently distracted by their amazingly snug leather jumpers borrowed from the set of Xanadu.

But that gets me thinking. There is no possible way this can happen in any other aspect of pop culture. Sports are by definition a black and white entity. You win or you lose. And while some may say pop culture has no competitive nature, tell that to the guy who doesn’t sell well on billboard while a glorified Now That’s What I Call A Mix Tape with his big single on it outsells him by a million albums. So here are the Spartacuses. The quick examples of how one person surrounded by enough talent to fill the cup the doctors makes you pee in during a physical, LeBronned themselves to success.

MUSIC – The Jackson Five

This one is easy. Back when he was still a kid and possessed over 80% of his own physical features, Michael Jackson carried his brothers like Chewy carried the dismantled C-3PO. Think about it. You had cute little powerhouse Michael. Tito. Jermaine. Um, Andrew. Action Jackson? Get the point.

Michael did all the work. His brothers simply looked like they were trying real hard to dance the way chorus members do when Barbra Streisand was in a musical. Pull Focus and somebody will have your nuts on a platter. Can you, quickly, name one song they let anybody else sing lead vocals on? I mean, even when the Beatles let Ringo sing, they made the song so out there, you couldn’t help but laugh at him and shrug the same way you do when you child breaks into the peanut butter and smears it all over your vintage Cheryl Tiegs poster. And they had every major Motown hit for something like ten years. They called it the Jackson Five. Though really the talent level, maybe, was more like the Jackson 2.18 (Rumor has it Tito cooked a mean frittata)

(Special shout out to the early nineties band Bonham. The band was named after the DRUMMER, which is ort of like naming your NASCAR team after the guy who changes the tire. Sure, he’s important and keeps things going, but besides ex-drum majors, who’s there to see the drummer?)

TV – Bosom Buddies

An entry into the realm of 80’s sitcoms when all you needed was a premise so outrageous, it could buy you at least ten episodes. It had everything working against it. Men in drag (There is the long standing corollary that only British men and obscenely tall black men are funny in drag. Short, squat, white American men are creepy.) Donna Dixon (who if not married to the Jabba the Hut that is Dan Aykroyd would be nothing more than the punchline to one of the greatest jokes ever on the Simpsons). And a Billy Joel theme song. Not even sung by Billy Joel.

Yet it’s one joke premise was kept on for almost three seasons. And why? Tom Hanks. The man had talent and even made the writing (a step above Chimps on Typewriters and the most recent Spiderman script) sound witty. He played off Peter Scolari (Who?) and traded barbs with Wendy Jo Sperber (a talent so great they didn’t even bring her back for the second Back to the Future). That’s like succeeding in the 100-meter dash while wearing clown shoes and leg weights. Tom Hanks willed a premise so thin and writing so bad. I think the show even got an Emmy nomination (though that may not be a big deal…think the words Emmy nominee Jm J. Bullock…nuff said there)

MOVIES – The first Pirates of the Caribbean

It was a movie based on a RIDE. Not a book, not a cartoon, not even a comic strip. It was based on a theme park ride. You know, the thing you wait in sweltering heat for 90 minutes for, it lasts for 2 minutes and you walk out going, “Really? That was it.” It was directed by the guy who did The Mexican.  (You screwed up a movie with Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt and Tony Soprano? Seriously, I could direct that using a marionette version of myself that speaks in Farsi and still have a decent film) And the bad guys were skeletons borrowed from a Harryhausen film. Surely, this can’t make any money, let alone garner any viewers. But enter Johnny Depp.

He swaggered. He swished. He made us all gape that he was acting his ass off and in a Disney film no less. People lined up to see him dash across the scene and deliver one-liners. And while the other young leads have gone on to promising careers, back then they were simply “the kid from Lord of the Rings who played the elf” and “Say, you’re sure that’s not Natalie Portman?” Johnny Depp carried that movie so far, they gave him two sequels. They banked millions into him and by the end of the third he was phoning it in. Surely, that makes him the ultimate Spartacus.

So I congratulate LeBron. He has announced his arrival on the scene and I applaud him for it. But don’t rest on your laurels just yet. Because everybody else is resting on theirs and they ain’t got no stinking laurels. Being the loadbearer can be a bitch. Pretty sure Tom Hanks says that to Peter Scolari every day while Peter washes his car and grooms his cat.

Now the spin-off has its’ different genres. There’s the ‘easy’ one where you take a character that America just can’t enough of and give him his or her own stage to shine. Maybe it’s the ensemble character who didn’t quite make the transition to movie stardom (Cough, Ed, Lost in Space, cough.)but America still wants to know, Hey, How’s he doin? It could even be the second banana who lit up every scene they were in and took Emmy’s home by the Hummer load. Now however, the spotlights on them and the second banana for them is even wackier than they were (and usually played by Andy Dick.)

There’s the ‘bit of a stretch’ spin-off. Let’s say you have a great idea for a show but think that on its own, it may not survive. It may get lost among all the other television ideas that resemble almost completely. How do you get it noticed without a meager budget, lesbian love scene or loathing by the spiritual leader/moral politician of recent note? You take an episode of a well-established show and introduce the characters on a very special episode. Maybe the popular sitcom family winds up in a backwoods town and we meet the loving, cantankerous family who runs the local garage. Maybe the two young professionals meet a man in a bar who lives with his psychiatrist mother, war veteran grandfather and a cute, pituitary gland inhibited black child. Not only do you hit the ground running, there’s always the chance of that sweeps week crossover guest star appearance. (This genre is called, in certain circles, the Ridgely/Oates spin-off, though only by bitter Britpop fans and men with cheesy porn moustaches)

The rarest type of spin-off is the ‘Survivor Spin-off’ It’s not about being voted off the island; its’ about those unlucky enough to get off. When a sitcom’s major star decides that the 28-inch box can no longer contain them, they leave. They leave writers with families, actors with drug habits and a key grip that just dreams of someday being a dancer, but his student loans are coming in and this is the ONLY JOB HE CAN GET, MOM! (Sorry, vicariously wrote that for a friend.) So what do you do? You package the show, shake it like a bunch of Yahtzee dice and toss whatever you have left and hope you don’t get garbage. You usually do though. Major bankable stars are like the free space.always there to save you if your concepts try too hard to be five sixes.

The question is this however. What makes some spin-offs into monster hits and others whimper out like a cuckolded husband? Why is Maude everywhere and Joey currently detailing cars at the Pic and Pay on Crenshaw? (Well to Maude’s defense, she was calculating, innovating, exasperating, whole lot of other gerunds…right on Maude!) How can Frasier go on for eight years winning Emmy’s simply by showing up to the ceremony? Is it the writing? Is it the characters? Maybe spin-offs need cute Jack Russell terriers? I don’t have the answers to that. If I did, my mantle would be filled with Emmys and not Precious Moments figurines arranged in suggestive positions. I do however now how to create a bomb. And Grey’s Anatomy recently ran the playbook step by step.

They tried to take one of their main characters and have her drive to another location, meet a whole new bunch of people and deal with their problems as well as her own. And it starred Tim Daly, Taye Diggs and Amy Brenneman, which is like getting every television actor who had one hit show amongst fifty thousand failures and put them all together. It was sort of like Live Aid without a neat little feel good tinge when you’re done watching it. It was as if they tried to cover all the spin-off success bases (The easy spin-off taking a liked character, making a bit of a stretch by having her sudden best friend that we’ve never heard of , and a reverse survivor.) And what’s worse they premiered right in the middle of a pulse pounding story line people actually cared about. What did America think? Probably, Wait, these are not my friends. I don’t care about their problems. Show me the Sex and The City meets ER philandering I love so well. Give me my doctors that all have McMonikers. And please, send Taye Diggs back to Broadway. They can light your candle.

The show will probably make loads of money and give Tim Daly one more chance to be as big as his sister (Fame wise, I mean…unless he eats a house and a small goat, he’ll never catch up). But it will not succeed. Simplicity wins the spin-off race, I believe. But as we continue on, we are all gluttons. We want more, bigger, better. More washed up stars, more plotlines, more tertiary characters. And though it pains me to say it, more Andy. Because as much as we stuff ourselves, when it comes down to it, we all still just love some Dick.

On Saturday and Sunday, the 32 teams that comprise the NFL will have their version of a debutante ball, only the women in frilly dresses that look like inverted tulips are replaced with tall, often shapeless large men in designer suits of all colors of the rainbow. It is every teams chance to wipe away the mistakes of last season and give a young lump of clay to chance to mold himself into a future black of iron that they will describe in slow motion with the big booming voice of the NFL Films guy. You can patch up the holes that riddle your team like a 1920’s Mob car post gangland battle with human Bondo. And men will watch it like a real, live event, knowing that even though there will be no score, some man with fabulously coiffed hair will give you grades (which matter about as much as the questions on Press Your Luck.)

Now, many people have used metaphors, AKA my one true love, to discuss the draft. They’ve even used the draft itself to act as a metaphor for other things in life (Mike Golic and his Dandy Doodles spring to mind). Yet I find the draft too big for metaphor. The NBA Draft is two rounds long, meaning you get two choices, maybe three if you can bribe the Grizzlies to trading with you (They’re like the Life Cereal’s Mikey of the NBA…try it..they’ll like it.) Two choices make it all the more important. Even the best marksmen in the world can’t hit the mark perfect with only two shots. But if you give them 12 shots (the number of NFL draft rounds) even they can hit a target. No, the NFL draft is a metaphor amongst itself. One big, lumbering bowl of metaphor. Every pick, every angle, every time they utter the words, “The next team is on the clock.” They even use metaphor to describe each pick. Think about the term “on the clock.” You think ticking time bomb. You think sweaty, overweight movie second banana wondering which wire to cut. And each pick is a wire…you take the flashy wide receiver…blue wire…BOOM, your team implodes like an abandoned warehouse full of cocaine. You take the mammoth defensive end with the soft spoken family and the dad who is a preacher…red wire…wipe the sweat off and bask in the accolades.

Now being that the Draft is one big metaphor, each pick is like a tiny little metaphor amongst  itself. If the whole draft is a big Whitman’s Sampler of Metaphorical goodness, each pick is the chocolate collection. The first pick is the mountaintop. You’re the emperor, with everything in front of you. But do you act benign and choose wisely. Or do you make a mistake and wind up like a French King, head on the chopping block wishing you didn’t suggest the cake. The second pick is the porter at Studio 54. Sure, you may not be the sexy shirtless bartender or the decadently coiffed member of the disco set. Heck, you’re not even the well-endowed coat check girl. You’re second-class, but the perks are yours. You get to rifle through the couches of everything left behind. Sure, you may find a used prophylactic or prick yourself with a needle but there are far more vials of drugs and left over coke ridden wadded up hundreds for you to scrounge up.

The metaphors roll blindly on. The third pick is the socks at Christmas. They’re not flashy and the gifts you really wanted have gone to the other kids. But socks can be amazing. Ask the grunts of Vietnam. Ask the Eskimos in the dead of Alaskan winter. Heck, ask Jim Henson. Pick four…the kid in high school that everybody likes but no one finds attractive. Pick four is who he’s taking to prom. Sure, the hot girls are all going with their quarterback boyfriends and even that somewhat attractive goth girl is going with the soccer jock (It may or may not be because of a wager…still checking on that…). But you can still get somebody to go with you. There’s still plenty of fish in the sea. But who do you take? Do you take the girl who will give you a sure “good after party” or do you take that girl you’ve been secretly composing songs about on the guitar you found in the “cool uncles” basement? Choices..choices. Pick five…well that’s the four cards to a flush. You can bet and scare everyone off or you can bet big and scare everybody. But you might get called…who knows?

Which now brings us to pick six. Pick six is scientifically proven to have no metaphor whatsoever. It is because of this that the team sitting at pick number six is in the luckiest spot in the draft. They probably don’t have that glaring of a list of needs. Picking at six meant your team went, what, 6-10. Two of those tough losses with the mysterious fumble or “jobbing you hard” holding calls go your way and you may be in the playoffs. And the major picks are all gone. You can actually survey the landscape. Plus the odds are that somebody has already reached for somebody who just didn’t deserve to be that high. You can go many ways and the kicker is, you don’t have to pay that all that much. Sure, it’s the NFL and the salary will probably be able to buy most of the town of Green Bay, but in relation to the 70 jillion the high picks are getting.  It’s a win-win. And there’s no metaphor. Though you’re still on the clock. And that bad boy is ticking.

So watch this weekend. Sure, it’s the male version of the Oscars (ooooh, what is Brady Quinn wearing?….I love Calvin Johnson in that suit…) but if anything it provides hope. Just know this…no matter how many names you see this weekend and how many metaphors fall like rain, half the picks will disappear. Half will be arrested. And half of those will wind up starring in a movie with Tia Carrere. So, nothings a sure thing. Except metaphor.

Well, death and taxes too, but that’s what English cases call an idiom. And idioms work better in the MLS draft. They don’t deserve metaphor yet.