Is This Because I'm A Lesbian?
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: LAW & ORDER
Good grief, that was some bad writing. I just watched Elisabeth Rohm's swan song as ADA Serena Southerlyn, which wrapped up with a complete out-of-left-field non sequitur involving the character's homosexuality. The episode ends with Serena being fired by her boss, the district attorney (a solid Fred Dalton Thompson), because she's too passionate for prosecutorial work. After laying his cards on the table, explaining that she's an excellent attorney and that her passion makes her an advocate, which is the wrong temperament for putting bad guys in jail, he tells her, "You're fired." She pauses for a moment, and asks him, "Is this because I'm a lesbian?"

WTF?

Rohm has been on the show, stinking up the sets, for about four years now. There has never been any indication in any episode that she was gay, straight, bi, whatever. So they pick her final episode to do it. Well, in and of itself, that's okay. But do a show about that. Make her last case one involving gay rights and use Serena's orientation to make a point or serve the story. But to pelt us in literally the last fifteen seconds of her tenure with "Is this because I'm a lesbian?" (Thompson assures her, and us, that it isn't...and I believe him; who wouldn't believe Fred Thompson?) is just bad writing, an NBC-style "shock" ending that shocks only in its cheap theatricality.

Meanwhile, THE WEST WING might be getting better. What was once one of TV's best dramas sank to a recond low last season and didn't get off to a great start this year. However, the shift is now away from Martin Sheen's presidency and onto the upcoming presidential election, which has already introduced Jimmy Smits to the main cast. Smits is playing a personable Texas congressman whom Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) recruited to run for the presidency against Vice President "Bingo" Bob Russell (Gary Cole doing a great clueless guy) and oily ex-VP John Hoynes (Tim Matheson). Smits has already shaken things up, lightening the screen with major charisma and taking the focus of the show out of the White House and onto the campaign circuit, which creates new story ideas. Aside from Martin Sheen's arresting work as POTUS, the WEST WING cast was becoming too shrill for their own good, as the writers began penning out-of-character material for them and transforming the series from social drama to soap opera like executive producer John Wells' other series ER. I had pretty much given up on WEST WING last year, but Jimmy Smits and more future appearances by Alan Alda (whom Smits may be running against) have me interested again.

Did I use "whom" correctly? I hate that word.

"The Daaaarrrrrrkkkkkkk"
Now Playing: THE DARK
Taking a bit of a break from my new Toshiba DVD recorder. I learn something new every time I sit down with it. Here's something I never knew: some television broadcasts are copy-protected to prevent dubbing. I recorded a Cinemax showing of FIGHTING MAD, a 1976 action picture starring Peter Fonda and directed by Jonathan Demme, with the intent of saving it to DVD-R. It recorded alright, but after I did some editing and created chapter breaks (complete with thumbnails...I can even do that!), the Toshiba refused to burn it to DVD. What I think might be the case is that these Cinemax broadcasts can be recorded one time, but just once. So I think I can probably record directly to DVD-R. That means I won't be able to do any editing, but at least I'll have the movie on disc.

I'm getting so I'm pretty decent about creating discs. Last night I dubbed a pretty rank 1979 horror movie called THE DARK to DVD. My prerecord VHS tape is not in good shape; it broke once, and I had to take the shell apart and repair it. Obviously that tape isn't going to last forever, and even though the film isn't all that good, I'd still like to have it. So I dubbed it to the Toshiba hard drive. From there I was able to create chapters, just like a regular DVD. I was also able to create thumbnails for the chapters (I can even name them if I want to). And I was able to create a menu using the colors included or using a screen shot. I found a frame of THE DARK's "monster" shooting laser beams from his eyes, and used that as the "desktop", if you will, for the menu. So now when I place THE DARK into any DVD player, a customized menu featuring the title will come up, and if I want, I can go from there into the chapter menu. It's really kinda cool.

OK, enough about that for now. Let me know if you get bored reading about my new toy. As for THE DARK, well, it's pretty jumbled and the VHS tape's dark print certainly doesn't help. I wouldn't be surprise if THE DARK was shot that way to disguise the ridiculous monster. It's about a zombie/alien/monster that stalks Los Angeles decapitating people and blowing up stuff with its laser-beam eyes. William Devane (now on 24) is the star, with Cathy Lee Crosby (THAT'S INCREDIBLE) as a TV reporter, Richard Jaeckel (THE DIRTY DOZEN) as a cop, and Casey Kasem (!) as a forensic scientist. CSI: AMERICAN TOP 40. Dick Clark was a co-producer, and it was directed by John "Bud" Cardos (KINGDOM OF THE SPIDER) after Tobe Hooper (THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE) got fired. It's a credit to the cast that THE DARK is watchable, but it's pretty disappointing.

I also saw THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, which, like other Wes Anderson films, I'm tentative about. I loved the visual style, the music and Gene Hackman's performance, but the domestic drama carried less impact inside Anderson's fantasy world than it would have in a "real world" setting. I think the Tenenbaums were too quirky for their material. I haven't disliked any of Anderson's films (I haven't seen BOTTLE ROCKET), but I think RUSHMORE and TENENBAUMS are underwhelming. THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU is my favorite, possibly because Bill Murray is so good in it, possibly because I liked its mixture of adventure, fantasy, comedy and wistfulness. Its weakest element is the filial relationship between Murray and Owen Wilson, so at least I'm consistent.

Sara, put in a good word for me!

My New Toy
Mood:  accident prone
Sorry I haven't posted lately, but I got my new Toshiba DVD recorder yesterday and have been trying to figure it out since. The manual is 179 pages...and that's the SECOND manual. Much of the material is for features I likely won't use, but I still have to sort the important stuff from the non-important. So far, I can record from the TV, record from VHS, create chapters and playlists, dub from the hard drive to DVD.

I have not been able to set it up so that I can change channels on the cable box using the Toshiba. That's important for timer-recording programs that are on different channels. I have the IR control cable hooked up and have it, for right now, dangling right in front of the cable box. It's a General Instrument digital cable box, and I punched in all the GI codes listed in the manual, but I still can't get it to work. I can change channels using the cable remote, of course, but I need the Toshiba to be able to change channels so I can set it to timer-record programs when I'm not home. I think maybe there's some step I am missing or some connection I have missed. Any suggestions?

I also screwed up and bought 100 blank DVD+R discs, rather than DVD-R. At first, I figured it would be okay, because most DVD recorders and players do support DVD+R. Not this one. Anyone willing to trade some DVD+Rs for DVD-Rs?

And I accidentally deleted something I had dubbed from VHS and was preparing to burn to DVD. I had experimented with it, creating chapters and removing dead spots. Now I gotta do it all over again!

It Had to Happen Eventually
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: BLACK SNAKE
I've finally hit the wall. I have nothing to write about, yet I feel I must feed this machine with something, any kind of drivel, just to keep the blog moving. Judging from the Comments, no one is reading anyway, yet I feel like Jonathan Haze in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS looking for stiffs to feed to the talking hibiscus. I might be forced to continue with my VHS collection.

I did watch BLACK SNAKE tonight, a nice widescreen print. It was directed in Barbados by Russ Meyer in 1973, and is his most atypical film in that it features women with normal-sized breasts and barely any sex and nudity. It's about a slave revolt on a West Indies plantation in 1835, and is sort of like MANDINGO, but less sleazy--if you believe a Paramount-financed feature with James Mason could be sleazier than a Russ Meyer flick. Matter of fact, I think the acting in BLACK SNAKE might be better than MANDINGO too.

BLACK SNAKE veers too much between typical Meyersian broad satire and serious racial drama, although it really starts to cook during the last half-hour or so. It's beautifully photographed and edited, and the performances by the local actors in supporting roles are convincing. It's too good a film to ignore, at least by Meyer fans, but not nearly as interesting as SUPERVIXENS or BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, Russ' masterpiece.

And, despite its subject matter, it's more tasteful than MANDINGO, not that it would be difficult to achieve. MANDINGO is mindbogglingly sleazy and unrepetantly tasteless, so much so that Tolemite and I once plotted a MANDINGO video game that would include events such as sucker-whipping, bare-knuckles brawling, anus-inspecting, and fights to the death with pitchforks over a cauldron of boiling water. Sounds like it must be time to watch MANDINGO again. If I dare.

Not much of interest happening to me at work or at home. We think Melissa might have had her baby today (yay), but some office favorites have put in their notices, as they leave for greener pastures. I find that I use fewer paper plates these days, now that I have a dishwasher. I've decided that waxed dental floss is way better than unwaxed.

A huge thanks to John for sending a sweet box of crappy movies to my door this week. In fact, BLACK SNAKE was in that box. I'm most excited about the widescreen print of STARCRASH he included. STARCRASH is one of the most beautiful Crappy Movies ever created, fast-paced with bright colors, insane logic, Caroline Munro in a leather bikini, a robot with a Texas accent, a dubbed Joe Spinell dressed as Darth Vader, stop-motion animation, a John Barry score (I'm sure he was tricked into it), Marjoe Freakin' Gortner, a pre-KNIGHT RIDER Hasselhoff (!), and Christopher Plummer as the Emperor of the Universe who has the power to "halt the flow of time" just by demanding it. What a delightfully loopy flick. Gotta see that one again too.

Ah, heck, let's just do it. The "C"s:
Caged Heat 2: Stripped of Freedom
Candy Snatchers, The
Candy Stripe Nurses
Cannibal Girls
Cannon
Capture That Capsule
Car 54, Where Are You?
Car, The
Castle of the Walking Dead
Cavalier
Chain of Command
Challenge of the Tiger
Champion of Death
Charlie Chan at the Circus
Charlie Chan at the Opera
Charlie Chan at Treasure Island
Charlie Chan in Egypt
Charlie Chan in London
Charlie Chan in the Secret Service
Charlie Chan on Broadway
Charlie's Angels (TV series)
Chatterbox
Chesty Anderson, USN
China Strike Force
Chinese Cat, The
Choke Canyon
Chooper, The (Joe Bob Briggs commentary)
Chosen Survivors
Cimarron Strip
Circuit, The
City in Darkness
Clint Eastwood: The Man from Malpaso
Cold Harvest
Cold Night's Death, A
Columbo
Combat
Comin' At Ya!
Contaminated Man
Contract on Cherry Street
Convoy Busters
Corrupt
Count Dracula's Great Love
Cover Girl Models
Crazies, The
Creature with the Blue Hand
Crimson Ghost, The (feature version)
Critical Mass
Cry Terror
Curse of the Faceless Man
Cyborg Cop II

THE CANDY SNATCHERS is coming out on DVD. This is my most anticipated release of the year. It has never had a home video release of any sort in any country, as far as I know, even though it's one of the best films in its genre. That genre being, I guess, unrepentantly grim drive-in exploitation flicks about amoral kidnappers who swipe a teenage girl, rape her, and attempt to ransom her to a stepdad who doesn't give a shit. Don't let my flip description turn you off from THE CANDY SNATCHERS, which is nicely plotted, strongly acted, and ambitiously packed with surprise and suspense. If you don't believe me, come on over and watch my VHS tape. Or wait for the Subversive Cinema DVD. It's worth watching.

Who'll Stop the Rain?
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: Sipowicz
I don't really feel like writing much tonight. I'm taking it easy, and there has been thunder and lightning outside all night. I fear 2005 will never produce a day of decent weather. I had a bunch of chores to take care of after work, but from 7pm on, I didn't do jack tonight except lay down and watch TV. I caught Jean-Claude Van Damme's new film--I bet you didn't even know he was still making movies, did you? It's called WAKE OF DEATH and was released directly to DVD the last week of 2004. And, like his previous film, IN HELL, Van Damme is very good in it, actually stretching his acting muscles and doing very little martial arts. WAKE is a straightforward revenge flick as J-C hunts down the Chinese mobsters who killed his wife. It's grossly overdirected by a French distributor who apparently thought he can make films that were better than the ones he was selling. WAKE is obviously directed by a neophyte who can't wait to experiment with all the neato camera and editing tricks he's been reading about in all those How To books. If he had just left the story alone to play out naturally, he would have had a film that was tighter and tougher than the too-slick mess he has. Some of the stuntwork would probably look impressive if he--his name is Philippe Martinez--had actually let us see it.

I also watched NYPD BLUE and LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, among the few TV series I watch anymore. BLUE is really just going through the paces, but the writers and cast are talented enough to craft stories that remain watchable and even occasionally engrossing. But tonight--come on, really? A serial killer who strangles women to get back at his alcoholic mother? Are we in the 21st century or was I watching a MANNIX episode from 1971? It's time we placed a moratorium on mommy-fixated psycho killers. Meanwhile, SVU remains the most potent L&O series, as well as the most lurid. Doubtlessly no TV show has ever trafficked in the suffering and abuse of children as often as SVU has, and watching each episode is like turning the pages of a grimy paperback thriller. Still, the cast is usually good (every once in awhile, someone gets a juicy scene and tends to go over the top with it) and the stories crisp and timely, and I rarely miss an episode.

Time to wrap things up with another glance at my VHS collection. Tonight, the "B" list:
Bad Ronald
Bamboo Gods & Iron Men
Bamboo House of Dolls, The
Bare Knuckles
Barnaby Jones
Batman & Robin (serial)
Batman (serial)
Battle Royale
Battle Royale II
Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica: Fire in Space
Battlestar Galactica: Gun on Ice Planet Zero
Beast of the Yellow Night
Belarus File, The
Bell From Hell, A
Between God, the Devil and a Winchester
Big Doll House, The
Big Score, The
Big Valley, The
Biohazard
Bite Me
Black Belly of the Tarantula
Black Mama, White Mama
Black Mamba
Black Noon
Black Point
Black Samson
Blood Debts
Blood Money
Blood of Dracula
Blood of Ghastly Horror
Bloodsport
Bloody Birthday
Bloody Friday
Bob Newhart Show, The
Bob Newhart Show, The (reunion)
Body Chemistry 4
Body Parts
Body Snatchers
Bonnie's Kids
Born Innocent
Bosom Buddies
Brady Bunch Variety Hour, The
Brain Smasher: A Love Story
Bridge of Dragons
Broadcast News
Brotherhood of the Bell
Brown's Requiem
Buck Rogers (serial)
Bucket of Blood, A
Bucktown
Bullet for the General, A
Burke's Law
Busting
By Dawn's Early Light

Christ, Jack, Couldn't You Just Let the Air Out of His Tires?
Mood:  energetic
Now Playing: 24 (some spoilers may follow)
Four hours along already, and 24 continues to reign as the best show on television. It would have to be in order to disregard its sillier plot contrivances. As in Bauer pretending to hold up a convenience store just to hold the man he's tailing hostage and stall for enough time for Chloe to hack into a surveillance satellite. I mean, really, Jack, couldn't you just shoot his tire out or something? Seems like an awful lot of wasted effort and an enormous amount of risk when a much simpler solution would do. And certainly whoever wrote the first four shows doesn't know much about the Internet. In Hour 1, a hacker downloading software illegally freaks out when a stream of red text pops up on his monitor. Instantly, he realizes that this SuperCode is capable of destroying the entire Internet. Later, the terrorists are able to hijack the ENTIRE INTERNET and broadcast their demands. Think about that for a minute.

But that's what 24 is all about, climbing that mountain of disbelief every week in order to get swept away by the tight editing, intense action sequences, wild twists, and the enormously dedicated performance by Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer. This show couldn't possibly work without the gravitas he provides; you can almost see his brain constantly at work, as Jack jumps from one reckless scenario to the next by the seat of his pants. That the writers always portray Jack as being right and everyone else, particularly his bosses, as being wrong helps, I suppose.

I'm still a bit uneasy with 24's new cast members. With the exception of Kiefer and Mary Lynn Rajskub as meanie Chloe, the cast has been completely overhauled, and I haven't quite gotten attached to the new breed yet. Particularly wrong are Alberta Watson, stiff and unconvincing as CTU's icy boss and wooden, wide-eyed Lukas Haas (WITNESS) as a dude with excellent computer hacking skills. I'm glad to see hottie Lana Parilla in this year's cast; she was a part of NBC's excellent BOOMTOWN ensemble and starred in a fun DTV monster mash called SPIDERS. Of course, William Devane is badass, as always--interesting that he and former KNOTS LANDING lover Nicollette Sheridan (DANGEROUS HOUSEWIVES) would find themselves back on TV in hit series. Geoff Pierson, the Poor Man's Al Bundy in that dreadful WB ripoff of MARRIED WITH CHILDREN, is the new President, having blackmailed the position away from his predecessor (Dennis Haysbert); he hasn't had much to do yet, but knowing what we do about his slippery grasp on morality, it could be interesting to see what happens with his character.

Today I heard one of the funniest stories ever. If you've ever seen Kevin Smith perform one of his Q&A sessions at a comic convention or campus, you know he can be as quick and hilarious as any standup comedian. On his DVD, AN EVENING WITH KEVIN SMITH, a collection of clips from various college tours, he tells an amazing story of being hired by Warner Brothers in the late `90s to write a Superman film (which still hasn't been made). The whole tale is a fascinating backstage peek at the way Hollywood filmmaking works, but the highlight is Smith's meeting with producer Jon Peters, who demonstrated his keen awareness of Superman's cultural status with the three conditions he passed along to Smith that had to be in the script: no costume (too "faggy"), no flying, and Superman had to fight a giant spider at the end. Oh, and polar bears had to guard Superman's Fortress of Solitude, and the villain had to have a robot sidekick with a voice that sounded like a black homosexual. It's a good thing the film was never made, although it may have been intriguing to discover what kind of train wreck a non-flying, no-suit-wearing, spider-fighting Superman movie would have been like.

Of course, the current script Warners is going into production with has Superman engaging in midair kung fu battles with a flying Lex Luthor and romancing a 21-year-old Lois Lane, so maybe we'll get tha train wreck after all.

The Jack Bauer Power Hour
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: 24 (some spoilers may follow)
Blip-chonk! Blip-chonk! Blip-chonk!

Almost eight months after he chopped off his partner's arm with an axe and saved the world from a killer virus, Kiefer Sutherland is back as superspy Jack Bauer in the fourth-season premiere of 24. Fired from Counter Terrorism Unit's Los Angeles bureau, Jack is now working in D.C. for the Secretary of Defense (that old Cheshire-grinner William Devane) and bopping his boss' daughter (THIRD WATCH's Kim Raver). But before the first hour of Jack's day is over, his boss and his girlfriend have both been abducted by Arab terrorists, and away we go with another 24 hours slam-packed with intense violence, backbiting, suspicion and the threat of a huge cataclysm certain to shake up the free world.

Jack is back without his familiar cast of supporting players. Bubbleheaded daughter Kim (the twinkly Elisha Cuthbert) is shacking up with boy toy Chase (James Badge Dale), who somehow landed a gig with a security firm despite having just one arm (I hope he has a cool hook). Soul Patch Tony (Carlos Bernard) is presumably in prison, having committed treason last year to save plucky wife Michelle (Reiko Aylesworth) from kidnappers. President David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) found himself in a heap o' legal and PR trouble after his ex-wife committed some murders in an effort to blow up L.A. last season, so he decided not to run for a second term.

The cast member I miss most is Aylesworth, who gave a wonderful Emmy-worthy performance last year as she struggled to maintain order in a quarantined hotel filled with terminally ill guests, especially as she sweated out whether she herself was dying from the same virus that affected nearly everyone else. And she's easy on the eyes.

Fox is following an unusual programming strategy by kicking off the season with a four-hour 24 miniseries, two hours tonight and two more tomorrow night. The real reason is so they won't have to do any preemptions during the rest of the season, and they want the season finale to land during May sweeps. I'm all for as much 24 as I can get in the shortest amount of time. Tonight's installment packed more plot, drama and excitement than most theatrical thrillers do, and I'm curious to see where the story leads us. And it's good to know that Jack is still in character, ignoring rules, disrespecting authority, torturing the crap out of anybody who stands between him and whatever short-term goal he's obsessed with at the moment.

'Til tomorrow night at 7, blip-chonk, blip-chonk, blip-chonk.

Michael Keaton Sees Dead People
Now Playing: WHITE NOISE
Michael Keaton is back.

He stars in a new thriller called WHITE NOISE, and the fact that its release date is in January should tell you what you need to know about how good it is. The last time Keaton starred in a theatrical release was 1998's JACK FROST, where he played a dead father reincarnated as a snowman. Not surprisingly, JACK received a frosty reception from critics and audiences, and Keaton fell plumb off the radar for several years, during which he appeared in some low-profile pictures that never received general releases, an acclaimed TV-movie about the Gulf War, and a teenybopper Katie Holmes vehicle in which he played the U.S. President.

I've been a fan of Keaton's almost as far back as I can remember. The first time I saw him was as a joke writer in a `70s sitcom called ALL'S FAIR, which starred Richard Crenna as a senator and Bernadette Peters as his much younger girlfriend. He did only a few episodes before it was cancelled, but he clearly impressed a lot of people who were making television at that time, because he popped up in one series after another. He (and David Letterman) were regulars on Mary Tyler Moore's two late-'70s variety shows, imaginatively titled MARY and THE MARY TYLER MOORE HOUR.

He finally made it to star status on CBS' shortlived WORKING STIFFS. I have all six episodes that were filmed of this sitcom, which is a very funny slapstick show that was probably conceived as a male version of LAVERNE & SHIRLEY (the fact that Penny Marshall directed an episode helps my case). Keaton and Jim Belushi played goofball cousins who landed jobs as handymen in a Chicago office building owned by their uncle. A lot of the time, the two actors appear to be going off-script as they found themselves disarming bombs and dangling from clock towers and wrestling with soda machines. Paul Reubens also appears in several episodes as a geeky delivery boy. WORKING STIFFS isn't a sophisticated show, but it's frequently funny (one bit with the boys trapped in an elevator with a bomb is wonderful), definitely lively, and relatively free of the putdowns and sex gags that pass for sitcom jokes today. It's also fun to see two very funny future stars develop their personas (Keaton, the wiry ball of energy with exquisite timing; Belushi, the loudmouthed slob who's a big teddy bear underneath) at the beginning of their careers.

I don't think Keaton has ever been better than in his film debut, playing Henry Winkler's sidekick in NIGHT SHIFT, which was directed by Winkler's pal Ron Howard, who likely knew Keaton from WORKING STIFFS, which was taped on the Paramount lot where HAPPY DAYS was made. 1982 gave us this and 48 HRS., Eddie Murphy's film debut, and it's a tossup as to which performance is more explosive. Murphy is brilliant in 48 HRS., all swagger and potent comic energy, but, dammit, so is Keaton, who steals NIGHT SHIFT from Winkler as "Billy Blaze", a cocky, ambitious morgue attendant who gets the idea for he and Winkler to moonlight as pimps (uh, excuse me, "love brokers"). Bolstered by an ingenious, laugh-a-minute script by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (PARENTHOOD, SPLASH), Keaton is absolutely on fire, spitting out a stream of hilarious lines and bopping about like ants are in his pants. It's impossible to tear your eyes away from him. In fact, he's so good that everyone forgets that Winkler is pretty good as the ostensible star of the picture. Keep an eye out for Keaton's amazing deconstruction of the word "prostitution".

For more classic Keaton, check out MR. MOM ("220, 221, whatever it takes."), GUNG HO ("I don't think it was a horse.") and THE PAPER ("I don't fucking live in the real fucking world! I live in fucking New York City, so go fuck yourself!"), an underrated black comedy by Ron Howard that no one ever saw, but stands up as one of Howard's best movies. Keaton went all dramatic on us in 1989's CLEAN AND SOBER, which is a good movie. He's funny in a supporting bit as Dogberry in Kenneth Branaugh's MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, and plays four disparate roles in Harold Ramis' MULTIPLICITY. Of course, Keaton was Batman too, but I never liked Tim Burton's Batman movies, not that I blame Keaton, who wasn't given any character to play under that black cowl. JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY, BEETLEJUICE and SPEECHLESS have their fans, but I never cottoned to them. ONE GOOD COP is an uneven mixture of domestic drama and cop thriller. And of course he was Ray Nicolet in JACKIE BROWN and OUT OF SIGHT (he's really good courting Jennifer Lopez in this).

As for WHITE NOISE, well, it's not very impressive, but Keaton does very good work in it as a successful architect whose wife dies in an accident and he becomes convinced he can contact her through EVP--Electronic Voice Phenomenon. He becomes obsessed with videotaping "white noise" in order to get a visual or audio glimpse of his wife in the afterlife. Soon, the film's moral of Thou Shalt Not Meddle Where Man Is Not Meant to Tread becomes evident when Keaton begins seeing pictures from beyond...before the victims have died. The ending is badly jumbled, but the film's biggest problem is that too much of it consists of people sitting in front of a computer, clicking keys and staring at a screen. Computers are not inherently cinematic, and director Geoffrey Sax isn't talented enough to add a freshness to it. Keaton does a wonderful job of selling the script's inconsistencies, though. He also looks pretty good; he's filled out some (he was 53 when WHITE NOISE was made), and sports a pretty good rug.

I don't think it bodes well for Keaton that his big starring comeback is in this Universal dump job, but it has to be more satisfying for his fans than his next picture, Disney's umpteenth THE LOVE BUG remake with Lindsay Lohan.

Odds and Ends
Mood:  chatty
Got up to have breakfast this morning with some old cronies from B. Dalton. I worked parttime at the mall bookstore off and on for 3-4 years. When I started, I was still working nights in radio and needed the dough. And a mall bookstore is a relatively calm gig, a little selling and shelving and opening boxes and taking out trash, but nothing too stressful. And it was a bonus that I really liked the folks who worked there. When I got a promotion to afternoon drive at the radio station, I had to quit B. Dalton, but I came back about a year later when I left radio to work at Horizon Hobby. I didn't really need the money at that point, but B. Dalton paid every week, it was a little extra jingle in my pocket, and the 30% discount was kickass. What was really nice is that I could order virtually any book I wanted and have it delivered to the store. For instance, McFarland books are quite expensive, but instead of ordering directly from them (and McFarland is rarely carried in bookstores), I could order it for the store and snare it for 30% off. Plus, I live alone, and even though leaving an 8:30-5 job to go work at another job is not especially fun, it was a good excuse to get out of the house and be with people.

B. Dalton closed one year ago this month. B. Dalton is owned by Barnes & Noble, which is systematically closing all the B. Daltons. It was a shame that the store had to go. Personally, it didn't break me up as much as it did others, since I wasn't that closely tied to it. I liked it, I liked working there, but I was there only 3-10 hours a week at the most, and the money wasn't something I needed. I was, however, sad for my co-workers who were fulltime employees, although I'm glad to report that all are gainfully employed and seemingly happy today.

Breakfast with Gary and Becca was good fun, gossiping about some of our old colleagues (The Witch, for example, a crazy hypochondriac with a knack for fainting on duty and taking months-long medical leaves. And the Chinese girl with a loose grasp on reality who once asked everyone, "Don't you just love shopping in Taiwan?").

Afterwards, I ran over and picked up a Sam's Card. There used to be some sort of brutal initiation, I think involving dropping bing cherries into a martini glass with your butt crack, but now you just have to fork over $35 and a driver's license. I just poked around the electronics a bit, and bought 100 DVD-Rs and some cases in anticipation of my Toshiba DVD recorder (which shipped from Amazon.com yesterday). As always, it's fun seeing what people buy at Sam's, like this couple who had four gallon jugs of Prego spaghetti sauce. Where would you even store that?

I showed Tolemite some Christmas cards a couple of weeks ago that had been handcrafted by the great Todd Woodman. I won't describe the cards, since Wooderson's employers would doubtlessly not be pleased at the use of his official work uniform as the subject of parody, but, oh, they are funny. I believe they are one-of-a-kind masterworks, but I haven't gotten a new one in several years. Perhaps, like `60s rock stars, Woodman has just been written out. Next time you come over, I'll show them to you. And next winter we'll start a massive letter-writing campaign to get a new Woodman masterpiece.

Glad to see Billy reading this site. Well, glad and not so glad. Since Billy is reading it, it means I can't relate any of about 1000 awesome Bill stories that need to be shared with the world. For instance, a bunch of us broke into a friend's apartment one evening, and when said friend arrived home, he found Billy naked in a towel, vacuuming and using the friend's toothbrush. That's about the 354th most outrageous stunt Billy has ever pulled. Bill, let me know when you're not looking so I can tell one of these great tales.

I have a bunch of magazines to catch up on. I recently received from Continental Airlines some free points toward magazine subscriptions through my trip to Los Angeles in 2003, so I ordered several: SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, TV GUIDE, TIME, BLENDER, FHM, STUFF, I think one or two more. So now I have a stack of them that I may or may not get around to. I just got a new ESPN, SI and FHM. Teri Hatcher is in the new FHM, so it looks like that mag gets the first look. Teri claims she hasn't had sex in about five years, which only means that she isn't looking hard enough, because I know where she can get some. SEINFELD fans will be happy to know that, at 40, "they" are still real and still spectacular. Teri also claims that any woman who says she does not use, um, electronic devices is lying. Any ladies wanna take a swing at that charge?

I also have the new PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO issue, which has an interview with MANDINGO star Ken Norton. The only article that could pull me away from Teri Hatcher's breasts would be one on MANDINGO, which is probably as fascinating to read about as it is to watch. I think Toler and Kevin will be glad to back me up on that awesome train wreck called MANDINGO.

This Is Your Trophy. Come and Get It.
Now Playing: OUT FOR JUSTICE
"He can take a punch. He can take an insult. And now...Steven Seagal...is taking out the garbage!"

I don't think I had seen OUT FOR JUSTICE since it came out in 1991. I was very impressed with Steven Seagal's debut film, ABOVE THE LAW, in 1988, and I made an effort to catch his first eight pictures on their theatrical runs. For some reason, I skipped THE GLIMMER MAN, Seagal's only theatrically released picture that I still haven't seen.

Today, a slower, fatter Seagal is a direct-to-video stalwart, although as busy as ever with six films out in the past two years. But he was a prominent box-office star in his day, including his fourth action film, OUT FOR JUSTICE, which is an effective little B-picture with a plot as simple as they come. Seagal plays an Italian NYPD narcotics dick named Gino who works the same Brooklyn streets he grew up on. A psycho crackhead he grew up with, played menacingly by William Forsythe (CITY BY THE SEA), kills his partner, and Seagal spends the entire night chasing him around the borough. Also in the film is Jerry Orbach, a couple of years before starting his long LAW & ORDER gig, but already wearing his Briscoe long face and duds; a cute Gina Gershon (SHOWGIRLS) as Forsythe's sister; Julianna Margulies from ER; John Leguizamo (SPAWN) and Cinemax sensation Shannon Whirry.

Seagal's performance is pretty broad--he's really laying the accent on thick--but he's having a pretty good time, busting a lot of heads and splashing a lot of blood. I suspect OUT FOR JUSTICE had to be trimmed to get an R rating; Seagal hatchets one guy's hand to a wall, blasts another guy's leg clean off with a shotgun blast, and jams a corkscrew right through someone else's forehead.

The Internet Movie Database claims this movie grossed $39 million, which is a damn good showing for 1991 and a lot more than it was made for. It's too bad Seagal's ego eventually got the best of him. His next film, UNDER SIEGE, is one of his best, but he followed it up with his directorial debut, the ridiculous ON DEADLY GROUND, and his career never really recovered from its notorious failure.

His recent work is not terribly impressive. He made a comeback of sorts in EXIT WOUNDS, which is a decent sleeper, but TICKER found him working with Albert Pyun, a candidate for the World's Worst Director, and Dennis Hopper, who shot all his scenes in 12 hours (and it shows), HALF PAST DEAD is laughably absurd (although it did get into multiplexes), and OUT FOR A KILL is Seagal's worst to date. I've yet to catch up with his most recent offerings, I think because I'm scared of what I will find.

I forgot to mention something in my previous post: a Flash-animated music video featuring William Shatner's senses-shattering rendition of the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". Prepare to be shocked speechless. That means you, Cheeseburger.