He Shoots, He Scores!

Well, not quite, but I think my street hockey game is starting to show signs of improvement. Bad Reputation beat Bang'Em Becks, 5-1, and since my team (Bad Reputation) was well in the lead, I got to play from start to finish. I think my finest moment was something nobody noticed.

After a faceoff in the second period, the defense man on the opposing team tried to get off a slapshot, but the ball bounced off something and went over the boards. That something was the brand new street hockey gloves my sweetie pie bought for me. Thanks Lisa! No trip to the emergency room for me, and Bang'Em Becks didn't get anywhere near our goal.

Bill Maher, Comic Genius (Sorta)

Book P.J. O'Rourke on the same television panel as Ben Affleck, and it will be, uhm, a well intentioned disaster. However, I was watching some of the new Real Time episodes (thank you, Comcast On Demand!) and Bill Maher redeemed himself by keeping O'Rourke away from the ditzy celebrity guests. Maher had a really good one on one segment with O'Rourke, and it was brilliant. They were discussing the New Hampshire Primary, and well, those guys are a more articulate version of Cheech & Chong. Maher and O'Rourke are a great comedic duo.

I was a little disappointed with the next episode. It looked really promising, because sex columnist Dan Savage was one of the featured guests. The segment with Savage was laugh out loud funny, but they buried it in the middle of the program. Why they started off with the boring Newsweek guy is one of those unsolved mysteries, like the Bermuda triangle. Just because you support the decriminalization of marijuna Maher, doesn't mean you should smoke it when you're trying to figure it which segment should kick off the show.

Nota Bene: If you don't have access to HBO, you can get the gist of O'Rourke's take on the presidential campaign here. Even if you did watch the segment, it's written by P.J. O'Rourke, so you know it's going to be funny.

Breaking Bad. Season 1, Episode 2, "The Cat's in the Bag".

This is the review of Breaking Bad I wish I had written last week. I guess I can take some comfort in the fact that I scooped Slate, but ouch, I wish I had used that kicker as my lede.

Coenesque would be an accurate description of the series. Walter is a smart man who has made the mistake of teaming up with former student Jesse Pinkman (played by Aaron Paul), who wasn't exactly the brightest pupil in Walter's class. The thugs on The Sopranos weren't honor roll students either, but with the slick suits, dinners in fancy restaurants, McMansions, and SUV's, it was too easy to get them mixed up with successful corporate executives.

However, at the end of the day, Tony Soprano is in "waste management" because he doesn't have the necessary skills to be a professional or run a legitimate business. Breaking Bad drives home this point more explicitly than The Sopranos ever did. Jesse dresses like circus clown, and drives a car that practically begs to be pulled over by traffic cops. If Jesse put half as much time into writing a resume as he did designing his Myspace page, well, he wouldn't be trying to dispose of corpses in his bathtub.

On Breaking Bad, there is no mistaking the fact that Jesse is a drug dealer for one very simple reason: he isn't bright enough to do anything else. Jesse can't follow Walter's instructions while disposing of a corpse, and as a result, Jesse seriously damages his own house.

It does make for an interesting on screen dynamic between the two. After watching Walter smoke marijuna from Jesse's stash, one has to wonder if Jesse will pull Walter down, or if some of Walter's work ethic and intelligence will rub off on Jesse. Given the grittier tone of this series, I suspect the former will be happening more often than the latter.

How to Blow Scoops and Muff Ledes

Almost a year after Penthouse and GQ ran profiles of John Currin, The New Yorker has finally deigned Currin worthy of coverage in their pages.

Unfortunately, it isn't available online yet, but for those of you unfamiliar with Currin's work, The New Yorker has a slide show here. As a biographical sketch, Calvin Tomkins's piece is invaluable. I don't think anyone has done a comparable, in depth piece on Currin before, at least in a non-trade publication.

Tomkins also manages to answer one of my burning questions about Currin: if he is a Yale graduate, why isn't he nailing his testicles to a two by four as a protest against the heteronormative pressures of a cruel and uncaring capitalist society? It turns out he learned classical painting techniques from a Russian emigre, Lev Meshberg, and thankfully for the rest of us, never lost interest in figurative painting.

However, Tomkins, just like Howie Khan over at GQ, decides to bury the lede. Three pages into the interview, Currin goes off on recent headlines yet again:

A reason presented itself soon enough, in the headlines about riots in the Islamic world over twelve Danish newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. "The response to that totally shocked me," Currin said at dinner that night. "That the Times decided that it was not going to show the cartoons - O.K., they're terrible-ass cartoons from a quality standpoint, but the idea that those thugs get offended and we just acquiesce, that was the most astonishing display of cowardice. And also the killing of Theo van Gogh, the film director, by some jihadist in Amsterdam - all of a sudden the most liberal societies in the world were having intimidation murders happen. That's when it occured to me that we might lose this thing - not the Iraq war but the larger struggle.

Wow. Strong words are being bandied about: thugs, the most astonishing display of cowardice, and intimidation murders. Currin isn't pulling any punches in this interview. So how does Tomkins follow up on this riveting commentary? Well, just read the moneyquote:

When I asked how this tied into his making pornographic paintings, Currin talked about low birth rates in Europe, and people having sex without having babies, and pornography as a kind of elegy to liberal culture, at which point I lost the thread.

The subject has started talking like he's been reading nothing but Mark Steyn, and Tomkins mind just wanders off. No follow up questions, no real critical response to Currin's provocative statements, just ennui and boredom. I'd get a refund from your j-school, Tompkins. If you can't follow up on a scoop like that, you should probably start looking for a different line of work.

Slapshot

How good were our seats at tonights Capitals game? Lisa and I could see the blood being scraped off the ice during a timeout. Washington, D.C., might be a football town, but the hockey fans here really love the game. I've never seen so many fans wearing the team's colors, and although the arena wasn't filled to capacity, the crowd was pretty big.

The last time I saw the Toronto Maple Leafs play, Winnipeg still had a professional hockey franchise. I saw the last Leafs/Jets match before the team left for Phoenix, Arizona. I prefer the my new home town team to my old one; the Capitals play a lot better.

The Capitals beat the Leafs, 2-1. The Capitals managed to hold on to their slim lead in the final two minutes, despite the Leafs two man advantage. Thanks sweetie - Lisa, the Capitals, and the Leafs - it's always a winning combination in my book!

Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!

Stardust. Directed by Matthew Vaughn. Starring Rupert Everett, Claire Danes, and Michelle Pfieffer.

If nothing else, Stardust is worth watching just to see Robert DeNiro, as the gay (literally and figuratively speaking) pirate Captain Shakespeare, prancing around in drag. The movie is very well cast - Michelle Pfeiffer as the evil witch, Charlie Cox as the swashbuckling hero, Claire Danes as his true love, and there is even an all too brief cameo appearance by Ricky Gervais.

Every bit as important as a good cast however, is an interesting script. Stardust is a solid movie, not unlike the Princess Bride. The whole ends up being greater than the sum of its parts. Personally, I think Stardust has a little more heart than the latter film; my interest in the Princess Bride always peters out after the brilliant first act.

Finding the MacGuffin so early in the first act of Stardust and incorporating it into the story as an actual character, Claire Danes as Yvaine, was a brilliant touch. I've always found the mandatory break-up at the start of the third act in any romantic story tedious, but director Matthew Vaughn hurries the characters over that little speedbump, and gets the film focused back on the action. With no loss of narrative momentum, the film finshes as satisfactorily as it started.

Breaking Bad. Season 1, Episode 1, "Pilot".

One of many reasons why Californication sucked so much was because some television executive thought it would be a good idea to do Sex & the City, but for you know, dudes instead of chicks. Fortunately, AMC's new series, Breaking Bad, doesn't fall into that same category, although comparisons with Weeds will probably be inevitable. With it's cold open and title credits that would have inspired me to memorize the periodic table in high school, the producers of Breaking Bad seem determined to shake off any accusations of trying to produce a Weeds knockoff.

As much as I love Weeds, the premise of Breaking Bad is a little less shaky. The only reason I can think of for Nancy's pot dealing is the fact that she is too lazy or immature to find a real job. However, Walter White, played by Malcom in the Middle alumni Bryan Cranston, gets into the crystal meth business out of genuine financial desperation.

The milieu that Walter inhabits is grittier and at times more interesting than Nancy's coterie on Weeds. Weeds is the kind of show where the audience likes to think they look as cool as the cast. Unfortunately, I suspect Weeds fans (yours truly included, despite the french cuffs) probably have about as much personal style as the characters on Breaking Bad.

The look of the series at first blush is mundane, but a careful viewer will note that the level of detail is almost painfully cruel. It's summed up brilliantly by Walter's slightly larger than fashionable eyewear, his dockers and tighty whiteys, moustache, and the Aztek that he drives around in. The back drop of the story, New Mexico, is a much more interesting choice than overused locales like New York or southern California.

I'm looking forward to seeing the next episode. Lately, there hasn't been much interesting original programming on HBO, but for the duration of Breaking Bad on AMC, I won't be suggesting to Lisa that we drop our subscription to the premium cable channels.

Motion Sickness

Cloverfield. Directed by Matt Reeves. Starring Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, and T.J. Miller.

Cloverfield is a lot like the original Blair Witch Project, but with a much bigger budget. The whole digital shaky cam thing is really gaining steam. I thought it was used effectively in 28 Weeks Later and the remake of Dawn of the Dead, and Matt Reeves has almost nailed it with Cloverfield.

The film has the immediacy of something you might see on Youtube. However, the shots are blocked like a professional, with just enough footage of the ground when someone is running to lend the movie an aura of amateur authenticity.

There are a lot of 9/11 allusions in the movie (the dust clouds, destruction of famous landmarks, and the stampeding crowds of people) but I think anyone trying to draw parallels with the current conflict in Iraq is grasping at straws. The military is a benign, helpful, and unfortunately useless presence in this film, good only for evacuating civilians, but not containing the monster.

I don't know if we saw enough of the creature for it to topple King Kong as the archetypal American movie monster, but it has enough of a Lovecraftian vibe that it could become iconic if any sequels are made. The theater was really crowded, and while the audience seemed a little disappointed with the ending, I think it's a safe bet that a new horror franchise has been born. The kids might not have been happy with the finale, but I know I was, and a follow up to this film might not be such a bad idea.

Office Space

Thank You For Smoking is a very inspirational film. I was watching it on HBO this morning, and I realized now that I have to look for a new job I should take this opportunity to brush up on my salesmanship skills.

So we dropped by the library to pick up Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I've read God Is My Broker enough times that I probably should read one of the ur-texts of the self help movement, if only to get more insight into Buckley and Tierney's wonderful little satirical novel.

Well, if I can't think like Nick Naylor when I head out for the big job interview on Monday, I might as well look the part. While my sweetie was at the salon, um, doing something for both of us, I took her up on her offer to get my nails manicured while she did her, uhm, thing.

I quit biting my nails about two and a half years ago, and a manicure has been on my to do list every since. There was a lot more buffing than I thought there would be, and trimming the nails (I opted for semi-circles) was faster than I thought it would be. Lots of dead skin was clipped off my fingers, and hindsight being twenty/twenty and all, this is something I probably should have done before my wedding.

It feels pretty good, and while I'd rather spend the money on my haircut, a manicure is something I could see myself doing every other month or so. Thank you sweetie pie for raising the bar on my personal grooming!

This Ain't Your Mother's After School Special

Juno. Directed by Jason Reitman. Starring Ellen Page, Michael Cera, and Jennifer Garner.

Who would have thought a film written by an ex-stripper could be so smart? Director Jason Reitman's sophomore effort, Juno, is a brilliant little gem of a comedy. Smasmortion can be a comedy buzzkill, but Reitman handles that obligatory first act dilemma with a blunter and in the end, more satisfactory approach then Knocked Up.

The cast was pretty cool. Reitman really likes J.K. Simmons, who appeared in Reitman's directorial debut, Thank You For Smoking. Arrested Development alumni Jason Bateman and Michael Cera also have important roles, but neither of them is ever in the same scene together. The real star of the show, Ellen Page, who plays the titular character, Juno MacGuff, manages to combine the ballsy comedic delivery of Sarah Silverman with the goofy charm of Cameron Diaz.

What makes the film worth watching is that it doesn't preach. It's not really about teen pregnancy, but about love and relationships. Reitman is smart enough to assume the audience has already made up its own mind on the issues and doesn't try to educate people about the issues. Instead, he's crafted a very funny, bittersweet romantic comedy that, well, the whole family can enjoy.

No, Not the Pink Floyd Guitarist. The Former Broadcaster Turned Novelist World Famous All Over Canada

David Gilmour is one of my favorite novelists. The highpoint of my career as an aspiring journalist was the chance I had to interview him on two different occasions when he was promoting Lost Between Houses and Sparrow Nights. I was looking for first editions of Back On Tuesday on Amazon.com, when I spotted this new title from Gilmour.

I haven't seen any press for this title, but with a blurb from Toby Young, Gilmour might be set to make a breakthrough in the USA. Gilmour's publisher this time is Twelve - the same people who brought Christopher Hitchens and Christopher Buckley's recent book. The design of the book should be breathtaking - Twelve not only finds great authors but also crafts beautiful objects. I've got my fingers crossed - they might bring him down here on tour. I'd love to add another signed Gilmour book to my little collection.

Update: I thought I'd plug in the names of some of my other favorite Canadian authors in the Amazon.com search engine and discovered that a former co-worker at the late, great, and much lamented Diverge Magazine, Elyse Friedman, has just published her fourth book, Long Story Short: A Novella and Stories. Friedman, like Gilmour, can do no wrong, and I can't wait for Amazon.com to deliver her latest book to my cozy little apartment in Alexandria.

Hey Big Spender!!!

Cuff links are curiously...addictive. If you aren't a member of Tony Soprano's crew (or Mr. T) I don't think a man should be wear any jewelery except his watch, two rings at most (one of which should be his wedding band), and cuff links.

I thought nothing could really top the monogrammed cuff links that my Dad gave me before my wedding, but the wife managed to pull it off. She gave me these really nice mother of pearl cuff links for Christmas, and well, now I own more pairs of cuff links then actual shirts with french cuffs.

Hoserpalooza

Recently, I saw Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. It's a funny film, but it does drag a little bit during the last act. My sweetie pie pointed out that the Mac guy played George Harrison, and while he was funny, the highlight of the film was Harold Ramis's all too brief appearance as L'Chai'm. Ramis spends a lot of time behind the camera, but anyone who is familiar with his work on SCTV knows he can do good work in front of it as well.

If you are interested in more SCTV trivia, Rocky wrote something that every diehard hoser will want to read.

Queue

The Annie Liebovitz exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art is going to close next week, so Lisa and I lined up outside the gallery to see it. Once we were inside, we had to wait in line so we could purchase tickets for the show. When we got upstairs we had to get in line to see the photographs.

After standing in three different queues to see the Liebovitz pictures, we didn't want to stand in line to the see the Ansel Adams photographs that were also on display.

I wasn't that bummed out about missing the Ansel Adams exhibition, because it's not really art if there is just nature in it. Liebovitz takes pictures of people, some of whom are naked, which makes her photographs even more artistic.