WTF

Of the sixteen movies that have a rating, only one is “fresh,” Gran Torino at 79%. I think that rating is a bit high, but no one should be embarassed at being seen walking out of the video store with a copy. Next is The International. I have not seen it, but it stars Clive Owen, Naomi Watts and fricken Armin Mueller-Stahl, sounds acceptable. Defiance is at 56%, which I also haven’t seen, but you can definitely look the clerk in the eye while you rent any movie where Daniel Craig kills Nazis. In fact, the act of renting a movie about The Holocaust makes you morally superior to those of us who haven’t.

It’s a pretty steep dropoff from here, and those top few are mind boggling. Maybe I’ve lived in a cave, but I didn’t even know what Knowing was. I had to look it up, and I literally laughed out loud at the synopsis: “Nicolas Cage stars in Knowing, a gripping action-thriller of global proportions about a professor who stumbles on terrifying predictions about the future—and sets out to prevent them from coming…” Besides the interesting placement of the ellipses (not mine), that is one whale of a setup. Some screenwriter actually sat in a meeting somewhere and made that pitch, presumably with a straight face, and then someone gave the film a green light and spent $50 million dollars to make it. So far it’s grossed $155 million, worldwide.

I’ll give you all a pass for The Haunting in Connecticut. I’m sure it’s as bad as the rating, but it’s a horror movie. That’s expected.

If you’ve rented Push, on the other hand, you should apologize to your family and loved ones for the shame you’ve brought upon them. Burn your Blockbuster card, cancel your Netflix and Xbox Live memberships, and move to Montana to live in a shack where you will write manifestos decrying the sad state of the American entertainment industry (otherwise known as blogs).

When I first saw the trailer for Push, I was honestly shocked at how bad it looked. Even a bad movie generally contains two minutes of footage that, when spliced together correctly, make it look like it might be slightly interesting. This one struck me from the outset as the most banal crap I could imagine. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Yes, crap.

Yes, Dakota Fanning is cute. Yes, Djimon Hounsou is a very good actor and plays a solid heavy. Yes, it was cool when Magneto made guns float in the air, and that kid who played Johnny Storm wasn’t so bad. All of these things in combination do not guarantee a good movie, though. What Push seems to be lacking, if the reviews I saw are to be believed, is some substance to back up the special effects. Not an uncommon problem in modern day Hollywood. Why do studios keep cranking out these crappy movies? Because people keep paying to see them. Dance, Spiderman, dance.

And speaking of lists of crappy movies, I don’t have the energy to go into all of the injustices in the list of popular movie rentals on Xbox Live, but there is one I am compelled to comment on. This is an injustice both immense and inexplicable, that you may not understand unless you’ve actually seen the film in question, which is called The Center of the World.

As I write, this movie is rated 16 of 1131 movies available on Xbox Live (if you browse all movies, and sort by popularity). It was released in 2001 and was directed by Wayne Wang. Wang had previously directed The Joy Luck Club, which was almost universally loved by critics. Molly Parker and Peter Sarsgaard star, and I remain a huge fan of them both, despite their involvement with this picture. Miranda July has a screenwriting credit.

It is horrible, just mind-numbingly boring and empty. I went to see it with a friend in the theatre, and we were in shock as to how such a talented group of people could produce such a soul-sucking film. I still have no explanation. This is not a big budget action film like some of the ones I’ve mentioned, either. It’s a small, character driven piece that was shot on a low budget on digital video.

Why is it popular on Xbox Live? Because it’s about a guy who’s a dot com millionaire who pays a stripper to go on vacation with him. And I think she gets naked.

#facepalm

Now, I don’t expect you all to be renting Citizen Kane every weekend, but there are better options than some of the crap you’re watching. Here’s a small sampling of movies below Center of the World on the Xbox Live list that are at least watchable, if not much better:

A Clockwork Orange
Quantum of Solace
V for Vendetta
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Braveheart
The Matrix
Blade Runner: The Final Cut
Training Day

And Defiance. You’d like to be morally superior, right?

I saw you on the street today rocking that canary yellow shirt with gigantic, seventies collar, a Pendleton, brown polyester pants and New Balance kicks. You looked exactly like me ten years ago, except I flew the Pumas and scruffy beards weren’t so much in fashion back then. About the only people who had them were the Pedro the Lion fans, and they tended to wear theirs sans moustache.

As I saw you ambling down the street, two questions came to mind: Was the Goodwill out of trucker hats and Harlem Globetrotters wristbands? And why aren’t you at SXSW?

Now I understand, you may feel you’re way too cool for an industry event like SXSW. It’s actually cooler to stay home and diss it than to go, unless you’re in one of the bands or sleeping with them. But you’re missing out on secret shows, pool parties, and secret shows at pool parties. You’re also missing out on the chance to see how your hipster moves stack up against rock stars from all over the country.

Next year, please try harder. If you’re short on cash, hitchhike. You must know someone who knows someone in Austin who will let you crash in their garage. Or just sleep in the park, that would be pretty punk rock. It’s not like you’ll be planning to wash your hair, anyway.

(Photo via Pierre Lascott)

Admittedly, we both know I don’t have money to hide overseas. I’m too occupied with racking up credit card debt to even think about saving, let alone jumping through all the hoops it takes to get a Swiss bank account. I’m a busy person. I have episodes of Secret Diary of a Call Girl stacked up on my Tivo.

But hey, it could happen. I could find a bag of drug money, or blackmail a politician, or just start selling drugs myself. I’ve seen Scarface like twenty-seven times. The world is mine.

The one thing I could always count on is that if I did manage to get my hands on a bunch of cash that I didn’t want redistributed to the unwashed masses, I could hide it in a numbered account. As long as I wasn’t messing around with Nazi gold I was good to go. Until now.

You’re trying to pretend there’s still secrecy, but we both know that’s spin. Once you’re willing to divulge information about an individual account to a government, it’s game over. There’s already a line of potential jailbirds. When I have my next money laundering fantasy, I’ll guess I’ll have to turn to e-gold.

I saw your performance Wednesday night on Hardball. At first I was going to say that segment made me want to throw up in my mouth, but that would be wong. It made me want to throw up in yours.

Mr. Fleischer, it truly boggled my mind that you could sit there smiling and utter the words “Bush recovery” together, until I remembered your previous employment as a paid liar. I’m not sure there can be a bigger straw man than an oxymoron, but for the sake of argument let’s assume you believe at least a tiny bit of what you said.

Let me offer the photograph above into evidence. I took it two days ago in downtown Portland, Oregon. You’re reading that correctly, it says eighty percent. That’s how sadly fucked this store owner is. Its a brutal time to be in retail, period, but this person happens to own a luggage store. It turns out that people don’t need a new suitcase for their staycation.

I’m not saying the Bush administration was bad for everyone. If you’re Erik Prince, for example, you probably spent much of the last eight years laying in bathtubs full of benjamins sipping dirty martinis. Prince was born into money, though, so he probably would have been doing that without Blackwater, just with smaller bills. Meanwhile the other ninety-five percent of us were staring at our blood running down the bathtub drain.

As disgusted as I was to hear your rationalizations, I’m very glad you’re out there talking up GW. Chris Matthews didn’t invite you on his show out of generosity. It’s a big help to President Obama to have a bunch of Bush cronies trotted out in front of the cameras right now. Try as you might, you can’t spin your way out of responsibility for this financial mess. The American people know better.

So, Ari Fleisher, please try harder.