How many penguin movies do we need, exactly?

There's another one coming out this year. Someone finally figured out that penguins = surefire box-office gold. And that's the last thing I'm going to say about movies for a while.

"No, Spider-Man, no!"

There might be something very wrong with me, because I kind of liked that "Spider-Man 3" flick. Critical opinion, both mainstream press and fanboy, seems to say that it sucks. There's no reason for it NOT to suck. It certainly gives off that sucky ambiance from the ad campaign. And yet, those same legit critics and fanboys mainly agreed that the first two movies ranged between "okay" and "pretty good," while I would not. Those first two movies BLEW, IMHO, ANITGW (And Not In That Good Way). So of course, with null expectation, I sorta like this one that everyone else has been complaining about.

Why Spider-Man 3 Was Sort Of Good
--a treatise of utter importance by me--

* There was more acting. It did resemble a Korean soap opera at times, but I like Korean soap operas. The first two flicks skated by on cute looks and a sort of vague hopefulness by the three main actors. In this one, we see Peter and Harry literally fighting over Mary Jane, and betraying each other, and feeling the impact of that, and that stuff, in Ye Olde Acting School, is GOOD. Mary Jane did NOTHING in the first two movies, I'm not sure if anyone noticed that. She had an ostensible action to play in the 2nd movie (finding out if Peter really wants her) but she walked through it like she was going shopping. In "3", she gets punked, she gets dissed, she has diva fits, she cries, she seduces, she even throws a brick at somebody. She was actually fun to watch, as opposed to just cutely dressed.

* The fight scenes were better. Although they were not as meticulously-animated, they were better-composed. The NewGoblin/Spidey chase through that narrow alleyway was exactly the kind of fight Spider-Man should be having. In the last fight with Venom, Spider-Man won with speed and ingenuity, which is, hello, How Spider-Man Wins Fights (as opposed to with brute force and mawkish displays of humanity). True, the fights with Dock Ock in "2" were more elegant, but I could never get over the problem that the superhumanly-strong Spidey couldn't beat Ock by simply punching him in the face one or twelve times. And don't get me started on those Spidey/Original Goblin bouts. Embarrassing.
....Also, there was a giant sand monster in this last fight. 'Nuff said.

* The dialogue, while not good, was not HORRIBLE. Let's recap, shall we, some of the gems from "1" and "2":

Goblin: You never know when some maniac is going to come along with a sadistic choice! (No one, no matter how evil, ever says this.)

Aunt May: People love heroes. Blah blah blah. They cheer for them. Etc etc. Heroes (n. pl.) are people who save people who, ad nauseum. (This has to be one of the worst speeches ever.)

MJ: You can't get off if you never got on! (What?)

"3" was at least lacking in cringing moments. There were even a few cute lines, like Spidey's "Where do all these guys come from...?" which at least hinted at the snappy wit that is Spider-Man's most endearing trait, and yet has been notably lacking from this whole movie adaptation business.

* Gwen Stacy was great. I'm not a big fan of the Director's Daughter Is Famous Now syndrome, but I'll concede that, within her limited role, Bryce Howard nailed it. Intriguing but not TOO intriguing. Beautiful but not SO beautiful. Exactly the kind of normal but dreamy girl that would end up in Peter Parker's life.

* It had one part that choked me up. Backstory: my thrills from the first two flicks derived almost entirely from the trailers. The inferences and the teasing shots of Spider-Man coming to save the day. Because, for pho's sake, all I really want out of a superhero movie, No Matter How Bad It Is, is to get choked up once. For one moment to be swept up in the fantasy of an alternate world where someone shows up to do something when the 9/11s and the Columbines of the real world happen (or even before they happen).
....This never happened in the first two flicks. Due to some clumsy handling of the stakes, the dialogue, and those pesky plot mechanics, it never seemed Important that Spider-Man showed up. It was Pretty, watching him swing in, but not Affecting. Maybe 'cause the Green Goblin was just not scary, and no one believed that crazy contraption of Ock's was going to work anyway.
....BUT, at the climax of "3", MJ's clearly in big trouble, the citizenry is afraid, and the bad guys hold extremely high ground. And then, there's about 10 seconds where, despite long odds, Spider-Man comes swinging in with no intention other than Handling It. Pretty dope. If it hadn't been for that tweaky faux-Brit reporter talking through the whole thing, it might even have been moving.

...That was a kind of long rant, and I guess someday I should devote equivalent time to some Subject That Really Matters, but whatever, I'm a geek. I just hope the next one has The Scorpion in it.

Having another desperate day.

Basically the same as all these days:

I
think
I
need
to
change
something.

We win, we win, we win.

The Bay Area hasn't had a sports team with a big win since the 80's, when the Niners ruled the world. And back then, the Niners were kind of like the bullies on the playground, they kicked so much ass. As a sports fan I find it hard to root for a dynasty. I want to root for an underdog. But over the past two decades the Bay Area's had not so much underdogs, but good teams that choke in a big game. The Giants in the World Series, the Raiders in various playoff games....betraying perhaps a certain Northern Californian whatever-ness about winning, a lack of killer instinct. It's like, who cares about getting a championship when you're already eating the best fruit and cheese plate in the world?

So the Warriors beating the Mavericks is just impossibly great, because the Warriors were huge underdogs, they were up against the "best" team in the NBA, and they did not choke. I'm still amazed by it.

Steve Kerr wrote this, which gave my heart a tug:

"The Oracle Arena crowd was the best I have ever seen in the NBA. In 15 years of playing and four years as a commentator, I have never, ever seen 20,000 fans standing as one for an entire second half. That's what Golden State's fans did in Game 6, and it was amazing to witness. The Mavs seemed to be in good shape starting the third quarter, with Davis hurting and the pace of the game in their favor. But the Warriors' crowd was so rowdy, so loud, that Dallas never looked comfortable on the floor. The momentum swung Golden State's way as soon as Jackson started making threes, and the crowd took it from there."

How badly we wanted to win, for once, and for once, how sweet to fail at being disappointed.

ode to Chinese women who draw women with one eye

Because the Warriors, heartbreakingly, did not win, I was reduced to making bad conversation with the Chinese girl sitting next to me in the sports/oyster bar.

Now, I've spent a fair amount of time in "Chinese" bars, both here and in Taiwan. And I know there's a certain kind of girl who spends most of her time in the bar doodling freely, yet intently, on her placemat and/or napkin, while her boyfriend and his pals are busy talking. Or by herself, because for whatever reason no one is talking to her. The doodling usually takes the form of a) soul-searching Cure-esque poetry or b) slinky women with one eye. Invariably a large, double-eyelidded, Bette-Davis-type eye with huge peacock-feather eyelashes.

I get the poetry thing. I also get that many women have a repressed interest in fashion design and/or the world of couture that inclines them toward drawing slinky-looking women with long hair in evening gowns. But my question is, why only the one eye? This woman's doodlings strongly resembled a Marvel Comics femme fatale called Madame Hydra, who wore her hair draped over one eye because the other side of her face had been HORRIBLY SCARRED BY ACID. But she didn't look like much of a comics reader. So, in the moment where her boyfriend had gone to the bathroom, and the TV was recapping the Warriors' humiliating collapse at the hands of Aryan Officer Nowitski, I lunged up and asked her, "Why only the one eye?"

She said, "I don't know how to draw the other eye."

This was satisfactory to me, and I laughed. We made a little more clumsy convo in my bad Chinese and her bad-but-far-superior-English, and then her boyfriend came back from the bathroom, and I left the bar.

ode to one good thing happening

>AHEM<
......

Shooting at the walls of heartache,
Bang, bang!
I am the Warrior!
A Golden State Warrior!
And heart to heart you'll win....
....if you survive......

Baron Davis also went to UCLA, my alma mater, that year WE WON IT ALL.
Also, I don't like that Dirk Nowitzki fellow. He has a macabre Germanic stare.

Just a few thoughts....

....on things that have not changed at all in the past few weeks.

- Creative writing is a wonderful, therapeutic, freeing thing.
- Mental health care in this country is really really bad. Thank you Ronald Reagan, et al.
- Mental health care, and for that matter all health care in this country, is so bad that guns shouldn't be sold at all. Why do we have a system for killing that is so much more effective, organized and user-friendly than our system for healing?
- Our educational system also has a few holes.
- Some terrible shit is going on all around. It is so sad, so many things lost.
- Dr. Phil does not know anything.
- We are in the middle of a pointless, revengeful war that only profits the already-rich and powerful, and kills everybody else.

Julie loves her Japanese dancers

Just in case anyone was worried that she might be selling out, it does appear that there will be people painted like
Butoh dancers in Julie Taymor's upcoming Beatles movie. Because that's the one thing that Cirque du Soleil forgot to include in their show. Still, this movie looks kind of awesome. I hope the Blue Meanies are in it.

doppelganger?

Charles, a dayshift dealer, says that this guy sounds like me.

I kind of agree. Makes me wish I had a cool motorcycle. And lived in Taiwan.

2007: First Quarter

Days passing , a long time,
a day wasted, waiting for
what could probably happen,
a safe distance to close
by itself, by yourself, besides you
there's nothing else to express.

What I say you know already
so slow or so what
fear of too quickly
something happening and if then
a new ruthless dream to dream about.

Can I wait this out
hypnotize myself with
a candle and snap
awake when the
feeling of flame subsides?

a time to speak out

I fear the Anna Nicole Smith crisis will tear this country apart. Through the Anna Nicole Smith crisis, my eyes have opened to a vast conspiracy of greed and corruption. Fox News, CNN, Access Hollywood all deserve equal credit for uncovering this network of lies. Only now are the true villains behind the suffering, like the doctor who prescribed her those drugs, being investigated for their evil-doings. I can't believe that so many people feel the need to terrorize this poor blonde woman's struggle for truth. I hope that we as a people can summon the strength to survive this crisis. But I don't know, it's looking pretty bad.

assorted self-promotional updates:

- This site is now also dommah.com.
- I have a couple poems in the latest issue of Beeswax magazine. Instead of pestering me to drive up to your house and try to slip them under your doorway late at night, you might try buying a copy. Lots of good lit and art in there.
- "Iphigenia" is nominated in several categories for the LA Weekly Theater Awards including the stuff I worked on (the multimedia installations, that is).
- Our movie "Target Audience 9.1" is now pretty much done. All rights are available, should you or someone you know wish to distribute it, mass-produce DVDs of it, sell the remake rights to Dreamworks, or whathaveyou. Here's a preliminary trailer.
- I recently finished a screenplay which contains not even one giant robot or alien. For me, it's an achievement.

Cut the Chatter, Red Two _or_ Communication Etiquettes

(CONT) I have this love/hate relationship with text messages, as I did with email when it first came out. But complaining that new forms of communication are somehow making things "worse" is such an Old-Fogey, Luddite thing to say. It's almost as bad as using the word, "Luddite." The new telecom is not in itself bad, it's merely a matter of how it's applied. Actually, with all the options, it can make traditional forms of communication more efficient and rewarding. If I were the Minister of All Communication on Earth, I would propose the following guidelines.

TEXT MESSAGES: Should be used when you are in a loud crowded environment (as I usually am) which will make attempts to talk on the phone fruitless. Can be used when you have a bad phone connection (as I usually do, you Cingular arseholes) for same reason. Absolutely should be used for little essential communications like (Are you free on such n such a date) or (What's the address), etc....where a proper conversation is not really necessary but some key bit of information has to get across. Hence, an ideal tool for the film production lifestyle, in which one is always too busy to speak or hear, but one always needs the address or the call time for something, preferably already written down within your phone. ALSO: you should be at least 100 yards away from the person.

CELL PHONE TALKING: This is the tricky one. I really believe that cell phones have destroyed any joy that was once found in phone conversations. Gone is the intimacy of knowing that both parties are in their homes, maybe curled up in bed, in a dark corner, talking out into to the ether. Now you never know if the person's driving, eating, looking for a hammer, out with their boyfriend/family, or whatnot. Cell phone talking usually feels like an interruption of your life, which it usually is; hence cell phone conversations have that quality where someone sounds like they're trying to get off the phone quickly, in order to Resume Their Day or Not Use Up Their Minutes. Or simply because it's too much work to hear the other person through the squawking and garbling that the Cingular arseholes pass off as "connection."
.....That said, cell phone talking is good for the convos that are a little more involved, but not Too involved. Since you are always struggling to hear the other person and/or at risk of losing them altogether, the practical thing is to get to the point very succinctly. I call people when I have a question and would like an answer that contains detail and nuance, two elements totally lacking from text messages. However, out of necessity, the convo becomes terse, efficient; it makes you realize how much blah-blah-blah you usually do when you're ramping up to say something.
....ALSO: Cell talk is great for finding out where people are. Unless you're in a club or a casino, in which case you should text.
....And that's pretty much all cell phones are good for, talking-wise. Most of my cell phone convos are shorter than the ringtone, or should be.

EMAIL: Email used to be the great passive-agressive way of contacting people without really contacting them, but now there are text messages for that. And, in light of the miserable quality of cells (above), email has been elevated to that medium in which you can actually express yourself, albeit one-way-only. Emails can be works of art involving pictures, music, the subtle poetry of language. However: since people do not read more than one sentence of any email that they did not themselves write, email will eventually be phased out as a form of communication, to be replaced with its more popular and exhibitionistic cousin, the Myspace Comment.
....Email used to be a good way to Get Things Done, but unfortunately the combination of the Spam Kings and the Spam Filters have sent that the way of the dodo.

LAND-LINE TALKING: This used to be a great thing (above, again) and now, well. A whole generation will never know the scandalous thrill of talking til late at night on the house phone, the other person's voice clear as Ma Bell, both of you a little afraid that the parents might pick up at any moment to check on you.

FACE-TO-FACE CONVERSATION: This is the one mode that has improved, I believe. With all the liabilties of the other methods, it seems there is a tacit understanding that personal contact is a richer experience, largely (but not solely) because there's always the underlying chance that you can jump the other person's bones. Because we now have the other methods to take care of the strictly practical ticky-tacky stuff, verbal interchange is now even riper for potential, because, whether the conversants realize it or not, it is something they have been missing for a long time.
....Still the preferred vehicle for: telling secrets, conducting important business, sizing up the other person, getting what you want, making friends, being decent.

MAIL: Should be eliminated, or at least limited to the functions of a) communicating from a tropical paradise or b) sending money.