Inexplicable attraction for right-wing toolishness, definitely.
Laundry tips? I do not remember *that* part of it.
It's like you were hardly there at all!
Also (b) is quite obviously "Apostropher".
Was your date height-appropriate, as I've been telling people? (I don't owe you $10,000, if you're claiming that. I did not match your offer.)
Does B know this because she was in bed with apo, or because she was in bed with labs? Inquiring minds!
Ahem, I left the party with my *boyfriend*.
Does B know this because she was in bed with apo, or because she was in bed with labs
This makes it seem like someone should produce and UnfoggedDCon version of Clue.
"Be the first to figure out which two people hooked up in what location."
9 leads me to believe that (b) should, quite obviously, be "Robust Ericbanahands".
I'd vote for legitimate beef on the Che shirts if only because I suspect most of the wearers think like, he totally rode this motorcycle? While writing a diary?
Am I the only one here who loathes the moral bankruptcy of Communism? Damn, I need some more ethanol and rainwater.
As opposed to the actual bankruptcy of Communism, I take it?
Dude, I'm Stalin, I don't know what answer you expect.
Fontana Labs: objectively pro-imperialism.
I had no idea Diablo Cody used to write Pussy Ranch. This goes some way to restoring the goodwill towards her I lost after listening to her interview on Fresh Air.
It comes as no surprise to those of us in the Mippleplex that Diablo Cody wrote Juno -- she's written and talked about little else for the last couple of years. It's quite dreary, actually. Sigh. The good lack all screenwriting gigs and Diablo Cody is filled with passionate mediocrity.
I thought Juno was supposed to be good.
Club soda ought to get all those stains out, Labs.
Also, yes, I heard Juno was good. Please don't disabuse me!
Eh, it's alright if you like that sort of thing. The "witty" dialogue is pretty ham-handed/tin-eared. And of course the nuclear family gets restored in the end. At least the eponymous protagonist has some agency. But I don't think it passes the Bechdel Test for non-patriarchal cinema. Also, I don't know Vancouver, but whatever neighborhoods they were using as stand-ins for the northern Twin Cities metro suburbs/exurbs were at least 20 years too old to be plausible.
What's wrong with Juno, minneapolitan? I almost went to see it last week, but I went to Charlie Wilson's War instead. Is it possible that CW's War is better than Juno?
Clearly I need to learn touch typing.
OK, between Sifu and my wife, folks are pushing this "Marvey" thing pretty hard. Is "Marvey" a better enough pseud than "mrh" that I should bend to their eerily collective will, people?
Boom. Kaboom.
That's the sound of Napi typing a comment, keeping time (head bobbing etc) to Have You Ever Loved A Woman, at a brisk clip on a treadmill. With an attractive young person on the next machine.
There's no fool like an old fool.
I think you need to consult LB, mrh. Marvey sounds sort of swinging 60's, sort of Austen Powers-ish. Is that the image that you're aiming for?
Oh, sorry Mr. H.
Charlie Wilson's War is not better than Juno, although both of them suffer from similarly dubious politics. That is, they both purport to be examining a Serious Issue, while only succeeding in further aestheticizing the political. I'll think about this more on my way to and from the cat-feeding.
28: Napi dirty old man suits you. Run with it, so to speak,
I suppose it does have a certain Classique sound to it, yes.
I was asking if it passed the Ogged Test:
1) Is it funny and/or touching?
2) Does it show nice titties?
For action movies the Ogged Test is:
1) Are the explosions big and believable?
2) Does it show nice titties?
Try to enjoy yourself more, minne.
"Marvie 'n' them" are off-screen characters in Mona Lisa Overdrive so the new pseud has that going for it.
The wife's laughter completed the experience.
Napi, that's great.
Marvey is cute for a day, but too precious for continued use. That's one man's opinion, anyway.
35: Well, by those criteria, Charlie Wilson's War is a thousand times the movie that Juno is.
I guess my main problem with Juno is that the character of the adoptive mother seemed to be the least sympathetic at the beginning, and I was preparing an argument for why I thought the movie should have shown her more consideration, and then Cody and Reitman wimp out and we discover that this character really was the most sympathetic all along.
And if I want to enjoy myself, Mr. Ogged, I'll watch my Miyazake and Bunuel collections, respectively, thank you very much.
I prefer the concise elegance of mrh.
Ogged Marvey is the best kind of precious in person. You would know this if you went to the DCon.
Wouldn't it be cool if Miyazake remade The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie as an animated film? I don't even know how to articulate what a slavering, eye-popping, otaku meltdown situation that would be.
"Marv" is more neutral and less cutesy than "Marvey"
I'll watch my Miyazake and Bunuel collections
A man after my own heart. Which is to say that I should really see more Miyazake; and Bunuel recalls years ago memories of downright indulgent, dedicated raiding of the local independent video store's collection. Time well spent.
As has been mentioned before in these pages, "mrh" is pleasantly redolent of We Three Kings of Orient Tar and all that.
28: that's a great song - I was cruising around to it earlier today. Right now here on the exercise bike, it's Led Zep all the way.
27: Marvey is, well, marvy.
45: Definitely, definitely see Porco Rosso. I watched it the other night for the first time and was blown the fuck away. It is perhaps the truest evocation of Miyazake's vision -- even more so than Princess Mononoke.
Sifu, I understand you, but I have a mental block that impedes me from fully realizing that goal: the lower age (apparent) of attraction for me has, for the last several years, fallen midway between my daughter's and mine. That's 35 right now.
Fool but not lech country, I think.
I guess my main problem with Juno is that the character of the adoptive mother seemed to be the least sympathetic at the beginning, and I was preparing an argument for why I thought the movie should have shown her more consideration, and then Cody and Reitman wimp out and we discover that this character really was the most sympathetic all along.
Wait, please explain this. You're upset because the character you were prepared to argue should have been treated more sympathetically was treated sympathetically? (Or is it too sympathetically? You measure out your sympathy closely.)
35b:Cinephiles mourn the loss of Andy Sidaris
I understood that after the close personal contact of these close personal meetups the Unfoggedetariat would support their close personal friends even when those CPF's would indulge in proto-nazi sentiments. Good thing Kristol & Goldberg, yea even Yoo & Addington didn't goosestep over to the backroom. I bet they're funny, observed thru an alcoholic haze.
I am not even disappointed in "no-relationship" Emerson. I never believed a word.
the nuclear family gets restored in the end
It does?
I think (b) was the Werewolf- philosophers have the best pillow talk.
You're right Bob. A colleague of mine created something of a stir at a wedding reception in 02 or 03 calling Yoo a war criminal to his face. This was before the full extent of his role was revealed, and was just based on what he described.
He's a better man than I; for several years the fellow across the street and down one house was in the WH counsel's office. I'd yell at him when I saw him on Nightline justifying some outrage or other. Out on the street, just a smile and a wave. My daughter babysat his kids.
It may be that, as stated in a review I read, the part of the movie involving the pregnancy test and Dwight from The Office is by far the most smarmy and annoying part of the movie, and the rest isn't like that, but it seems like a bad sign that that was the part that took up most of the preview I saw.
I prefer the concise elegance of mrh.
Plus it's nice that Mr. H has given us an initial-based pseudonym whose gender can be remembered.
Ironically, although I am male, my pseudonym isn't.
Mrh should be myrrh.
My sisters liked Juno.
We also saw Sweeney Todd, which was pretty awesome even if they had Giles in the movie and they didn't let him sing!11111!. Depp can't really sing, and I'd never heard the tunes before so I imagine a lot of it is more powerful with someone who can sing.
shivbunny found the barber chair contraption very funny, so as all these horrible murders are going on, he's quietly laughing "it's funny every. single. time."
I hope he also laughed during the "By the Sea" sequence, which really was magnificent.
Best scene in the whole movie is Depp grabbing HBC's knee (that blank stare!), as far as I'm concerned.
HBC sure was wearing a lot of kohl for that sequence.
It would be interesting to track the changes in her kohl-wearing over the course of the movie. Towards the end she was wearing very little.
61: and imagine: "Marvey: Classique!"
HBC is the celebrity people are most likely to tell me I look like. This was flattering at one point, but from fight club & on, it's gotten less & less & less so.
No way I'm seeing Sweeney Todd--a horror musical is the perfect storm of movies my husband and I refuse to watch.
I liked Juno fine, but I think it's being a little too talked up.
FL, we had an absolutely delightful Cold War-themed party, thank you very much. Left and right, as it were, kissed and commingled. (Although not right there where everyone could see, you know.) There were no Che shirts, and it wasn't about kitsch so much as about bitterness, despair, getting very drunk and some really good dance music. We also had three separate models of Sputnik and spoke in passing of science fiction and interplanetary travel as tropes of pre-USSR left-wing organizing. After everyone went home but the die-hards, we toasted Salvador Allende and Victor Jara in such alcohol as remained.
I love theme parties, though. The most impressive party I've ever attended had "helmets" as the theme.
Marxist , you see, annoys me quite a lot. Marxism doesn't. And not all engagement with the material remains of really-existing socialism is kitsch.
The great mistake on left and right is to think that all members of the opposing political tendency are the same.
71: I note that it's Marxist kitsch that annoys me. And add that certain Marxists do as well but by no means all of them. Also with pleasure I reflect that the fad for left-academics calling themselves marxians seems to have died away.
Wins the queasy not-quite-hungover-all-day contest, you mean, parsimon!
It just sounds like a good party. With the addition of the dance music.
I want to go to Frowner's Cold War party.
One of the best fetes I attended in college was dubbed The Communist Party. They had a a mock-up Berlin Wall, which was knocked down at the height of the party. A friend who had actually lived in a Soviet-bloc country led is in silly dances: up and down! all together! now chant "Vodka" a lot!
Come to think of it, it was totally m-fun (minus roof-throwing), so I'm sure ogged would've hated it.
speaking of the workers, what do people think of Stewart & Colbert going back as the writers' strike continues? if I watch, am I basically crossing a picket line? probably so, damn it...would be interested in hearing anyone's opinion about this, esp. since I believe we had one sometime commenter who's actually on strike.
Yeah, unless someone can convince me that what they're doing isn't wrong, I'm not watching the Daily Show and Colbert Report anymore, which makes me sad.
Even more pressing is the fact that without their writers, the shows will completely suck.
I'm no expert, but I've heard that the issue is that tech crew, producers & support staff are not on strike but have mortgages (or at least landlords in the NYC metro area). Keep in mind that (IIRCUIRIIYKWIMAITYD) the producers and directors have contract negotiations very soon, and in fact had asked the writers to hold off their action so everyone could negotiate at the same time.
I'm interested in seeing how Colbert and Stewart report on the strike itself. My understanding is that Leno railed against it on-air after crossing picket lines during the previous strike. Could be helpful.
My vague sense of the rights and wrongs is that assuming Colbert and Stewart aren't union members, they're not doing anything wrong as such by keeping the show going (that is, management attempting to keep functioning with the use of non-union labor is an expected and not dishonorable part of the process), but you still shouldn't watch if you support the strike. But you don't have to hold the attempt against them once the strike is over.
82: From this NYT piece:
Both hosts are Writers Guild of America members. The guild, in a statement, accused Comedy Central of forcing the two hosts back to work and reiterated that the studios should resume negotiations to reach a settlement in the strike.
Stewart is a guild member. I heard a union rep say that he was not supposed to use his skills as a writer if he put the show on during the strike.
I think that Colbert and Stewart are in the writers union. They're coming back on the understanding that the shows will consist of ad-libbed interviews, that is, no writing. I probably won't watch, but so far, Colbert and Stewart have been making all the write noises about having to come back without their writers.
Colbert and Stewart aren't union members
Oh, they're members. They're not allowed to write anything and have to improvise. Cf.
Both hosts are Writers Guild of America members. The guild, in a statement, accused Comedy Central of forcing the two hosts back to work and reiterated that the studios should resume negotiations to reach a settlement in the strike.
I'm not loving the writing/ad-lib distinction there.
You don't think there's a difference between having a cue-carded script and ad-libbing?
Letterman struck a separate deal with the union which will allow his writers (both on the Late Show and the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson) to get back to work. I'm not sure whether it's okay to watch them.
He agreed to a fair deal for the writers, so that's a point in favor of allowing myself to watch. BUT even though World Wide Pants is owned by Letterman, his show does generate income for CBS, one of the major studios in negotiations with the Guild. By going back on the aire he's making the strike slightly less painful for CBS. Furthermore, his writers get their income back while others still have to walk the picket line. Where's the solidarity in that?
On Letterman, the union signed the deal intentionally -- no sense being more Catholic than the pope. On writing v. ad-libbing: if you're the writer, there's not a bright-line difference, is there? If you spend the day musing about what you're going to say, and then saying it, that's not wildly different from thinking about what you're going to say, writing it down, and then reading it off a script.
(And I think the idea may be for the union to break the studios' solidarity. If people are watching Letterman with its writing staff intact, guilt-free, that puts a serious hurt on Leno, IYSWIM.)
On writing v. ad-libbing: if you're the writer, there's not a bright-line difference, is there?
I don't have any well thought-out opinions on the matter, but a few musings...
There is a difference in terms of credits (and hence entitlement to payments, royalties, etc.)
Having the show go on without writers might serve to graphically illustrate the centrality of the writer's craft to the success of such a show. This makes me think that Stewart and Colbert must have been under heavy pressure to agree to this arrangement, because it's pretty much guaranteed to show them in a less than flattering light.
Yeah, I believe Letterman signed a "most favored nation" agreement with his writers, and I assume that it's a means for the union to put pressure on the other late-night shows.
If your irritation at a Che shirt is not matched by irritation at an American flag shirt, then yes, you are a tool.
I agree with Knecht that they were probably pressured. Colbert's situation is trickier than Stewart's, because he does more of his own writing. He may look less unfavorable, but I don't know.
Colbert's situation is trickier than Stewart's, because he does more of his own writing.
OTOH, Colbert (who was with Second City) has more improv training, IIRC/UIRI.
A guy I know is among those on strike, but I haven't asked him about it because, you know, I don't even have a TV.
I'm in a quandary because I never watch any of the shows ever. Obviously if I would watch one of the scab shows I'd be making a a strong anti-union statement, but how can I show solidarity by boycotting more than my customary 100%? It's hard being a liberal.
I guess I can pledge to watch TV for a week once the union wins. That's what I did with Air America for a month or two.
97:Adam, I liked your post at Weblog, the one before the blues bar post. Your cridecour was part of what got me pissed about Quintana Roo's "Ain't socialists silly" gratuitous injection of politics on NY's day.
Never have watched Letterman, Colbert or Stewart, so I can safely say I never will. Weather Channel's been oncreen for about three hours, and I an wondering who writes their stuff.
The correct course of action for Stewart and Colbert is to go on their respective shows and take dives.
52: (Or is it too sympathetically? You measure out your sympathy closely.)
Yeah, sorry, I meant to explain this in more detail.
***
SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERRSSPOILERSSPOILERS
***
In the first couple of scenes which featured Jennifer Garner's character "Vanessa Loring", Vanessa is a fairly flat stereotype of the grasping, suburban wannabe-mom who ostensibly sees motherhood as just another notch on her gunbelt. As the narrative progresses, however, it becomes clear that she embodies most of the traditional maternal values (fidelity, compassion, a sense of wonder about the antics of kids, serious devotion to providing for her child, etc.) By the time the film ends, it's been proven that she is indeed the best of all possible moms, and that she really did deserve the child that Juno is giving her. So then we're right back to the whole Kinder, Küche, Kirche lie of patriarchal society. The fact that Vanessa will be going it alone simply reinforces her fitness to be the uber-mom. Patriarchy is thus reinscribed on a supposedly feminist (or at least not-anti-feminist) narrative. And after all, it's Jennifer Garner, plus baby, but sans stretch marks -- how long is she seriously going to stay single?
I would have been more sympathetic to a Vanessa that didn't embody so much perfection. If she had remained a cold, soulless yuppie, I think we could have read the character as saying something useful about society and motherhood and desire. Instead, we fall into the same old dichotomy of men=selfish, greedy, polyamorous (in a bad way) and shallow, while women=earth mother, purity, compassionate & nurturing. Fuck that noise.
i make $8/hour. fuck solidarity with people who make two, maybe four times that. i'm watchin' teevee.
97: The guy who produces (or directs, or something) House also does some of the writing. I like to imagine him talking to himself as his own devil and angel, management arm-wrestling the union. But he says he's not writing during the strike. (Now, the fact that they got about six extra episodes written beforehand....) I wonder how common arrangements like that are. In any case, the networks just need to get the hell over the extra four cents per DVD or whatever they're bitching about because they're really pretty toolish.
Rather than not watching the shows, shouldn't a person not buy the stuff being advertised? It's not like laughing at a Leno joke changes anything, and, indeed, unless you're in a Neilsen household (or whatever they're called nowadays) nobody knows you're watching anyway.
Not that much on the tube is worth watching . . .
I really, really liked the movie a lot minneapolitan, and I'll brave your cold North Midwest scorn to defend it. What you saw as reinscribing the "same old dichotomy of men=selfish, greedy, polyamorous (in a bad way) and shallow, while women=earth mother, purity, compassionate & nurturing" I saw as rejection of the perpetual male adolescence of the cultural moment. I loved that the movie wrote out Jason Bateman's character -- once he chickened out of his adult relationship, the narrative wasn't compelled to show him Finding His Bad Self or any such crap. He was just gone, and good riddance. Vanessa hasn't beome the best of all possible moms -- she's just going through with a commitment to becoming a parent. At most, she's passed the entrance exam, and the movie has complicated it's first take on the couple as hip dad and hysterical mom.
As for the Bechdel test, I'd say that the various scenes between the stepmother and Juno, especially the one with the lab tech, as well as between Juno and her best friend discussing not "men" but her abortion well more than qualify it. And the sisterhood in the note that makes up the final frame would pass the test even if the other scenes weren't there.
There is a touch of the anodyne in it -- she does have good people in her life -- but they're not perfect people, and they're not stereotypical people. The portrayal of the stepmother relationship as antagonistic but lovingly, not fatally, so I found particularly lived.
I mean, yeah, it was another movie that rejects abortion, and we should all go see the Romanian abortion drama as penance. But given the frame, I was surprised in a good big way.
Oh god, are people still playing the "but you woud hardly wear a Goebbels t-shirt would you!!" game? I was actually going to declare books closed on that as a piece of red-baiting silliness and make a donation to the Grice Fund.
Charlie Wilson's War: Surprisingly interesting and diverting, especially considering the Hanks/Roberts factor. The fact that the character Hanks plays is not subtle fit rather nicely into Hanks' acting style and made a lot of his mannerisms grate less. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is just plain awesome. But I really didn't need to see Tom Hanks' ass.
Dear Hollywood:
MORE UNDER-40 MAN ASS, PLEASE. A girl can only watch Starship Troopers so many times.
Juno: MORE POTENTIAL SPOILAGE
I read Juno in a similar way to how Wrongshore did -- they had a typical Hollywood movie setup of irresponsible-yet-playfully-in-touch-with-life! dude (see: almost every character Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell have ever played) vs. loving yet stern nag of a wife, and usually comes down on the side of the guy. But in real life, a middle-aged guy who bonds with an adolescent -- especially a girl -- would be a bit creepy and pathetic, and the tightly-wound wife probably has reasons for being that way other than just being a control freak. I thought the way that relationship flipped around from what we'd been led to expect was refreshing.
That said, some of the mechanics of the plot were too visible, and the first five minutes made me curl up in a ball, worried that I'd be subjected to another 85 minutes of really cringeworthy dialogue. And I can't listen to or read any more interviews with Diablo Cody, because the bratty yet naive adolescent she casts herself as is really fucking tiresome.
*Spoilerz? I dunno*
Wrongshore: The Juno/stepmother dialogues might get a passing Bechdel score, but I'd still argue for like a D+ at best. Esp. as they seem like filler, and are pretty ancillary to the plot.
I think your and Magpie's points about what happens, or doesn't happen, with Bateman's character are well taken. The resolution of that thread is a point in the film's favor given your readings. Perhaps this is a completely inaccurate and irresponsible way to think about character, but I often try to envision the rest of the character's life in order to determine my reading of their place in the film. With Bateman's "Mark", I'm guessing he moves into his loft, dates 23-year-old scenesters, maybe even takes the six-figure salary in-house music director job at Fallon that his buddy has been dangling under his nose, and spends the rest of his 30s, and much of his 40s hanging out making the scene and goofing off. Then he'll probably impregnate his current girlfriend when he's 43, and do the whole family thing anyway. Which all doesn't seem like as much of a rejection of his choices to me.
And another thing: Not only does Juno reject abortion, it even rejects condoms ferchrissakes! In this day and age, that's practically criminal.
My problem was during the scene when she's telling her parents, I kept thinking, "Don't! Your mom will be asked about it at the next press briefing, and your dad might be asked by McCoy next time he's on the stand!"
103: Yeah, I'm expecting (or hoping for) something similar. Like they'll go on a rant about the studio or something. It certainly would be entertaining. Of course, that would only work if it's broadcast live, but still, we can dream.
108: so all I have to do is boycott Reno 9/11?
oops. Temporarily possessed by Rudy Giuliani. I meant Reno 911.
114: The abortion politics are of course terrible. But making a movie about kids who forego condoms can hardly be called anti-condom.
I maintain that the movie surrounds Juno with women in sufficient number to please Alison Bechdel. If only there were some appeal we could make.
You know nothing of my work. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.
D2, could you expand on the Gricean argument? I'm not sure I see what you're getting at.
The Grice Fund. Try to keep up, Labs.
115: I haven't seen the movie, but this cracked me up. CJ!
How embarrassing. The Grice Fund.
http://www.idiocentrism.com/grice.htm
Huh, I'm still not getting it. 2008: year of the humorless!
w-lfs-n will now carp at w-lfs-n for failing to call it "The Grice United Fund."
By the by, it looks like T-Rex and Ogged have the same taste in movies.