BillSaysThis

Presented to me this morning, with love, by the Sweet One for Day 12 (or V-Day -2):

This movie is an excellent example of absurdity; possibly one of the best movie examples of the genre in many years. I greatly enjoyed Confessions of a Dangerous Mind though in order to be complete I should say that the buddy I went with was bored. Since I was laughing about every third minute I can’t explain his reaction.

Sam Rockwell, to me, is the key to this film. He does an amazing job of filling the skin of a real man, one familiar to most of us from when he hosted The Gong Show, bringing out a constant level of jittery energy. Chuck Barris, the man Rockwell plays, not only hosted that lunatic’s asylum, he also created many other fine examples of 1960s and ’70s game shows including The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game. But in his “unauthorized autobiography” and the interviews he gave that form the basis for this film, Barris also claims to have lead a double life as a contract killer for the CIA.

Besides Rockwell, the other really strong performance here is from Drew Barrymore as his longtime girlfriend and eventual wife. Talk about long suffering, Barrymore’s Penny goes frmo an early free love advocate to a love-sick puppy who can barely abide Barris’ inability to commit to a permanent, loving relationship. Though she does look fairly chunky throughout, a definite disappointment though perhaps(?) reflective of the real woman. George Clooney and Julia Roberts have the other two major roles but neither brings sufficent life to their parts; Clooney especially seems to think a cheesy mustache is enough to overcome a perpetual monotone. Roberts has a couple of scenes in which she could have done so much more: after her first encounter with Rockwell, when they make love in West Berlin, and when she meets Barrymore while chastising Rockwell for standing her up (so he can dine with Drew). As for her death scene, forget about it. Puh-lease is the correct response, I believe.

Perhaps, you might say, Clooney’s acting was not all it could be because he was so focused on directing for the first time. How does he do there? Not bad, but not great. The staging and pacing are just okay; I did like the way he put together both scenes Rockwell has with Rutger Hauer. The main credit, though, must go to scriptwriter Charlie Kauffman, who has come out of nowhere (TV shows like Ned & Stacey and Get a Life) to just rock Hollywood with the scripts for Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and now this–watch out for his next effort, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I think even the studio execs are scared of what amazing weirdness would happen if they ever let Kauffman direct!

No one I know of believes that Barris was a hitman for the CIA. My buddy suggested that all the scenes involving that aspect of his life were Beautiful Mind-like hallucinations with Clooney playing the Ed Harris role. My own theory is not so dissimilar but caused more by Barris’ actual childhood troubles such as his mother dressing him as a girl until, after several years later, his sister was born and a feeling of guilt he carried for having caused the death of a stillborn twin from his umbilical cord wrapping around the other’s neck in the womb. Probably some chemical imbalances thrown in for good measure.

All these troubles just bubble along under the surface, hardly seen in his daily life by those near him, until his shows are cancelled at the end of the ’70s. Then he snaps, on air during the taping of the last Gong Show. After nearly drowning in this disease he finds relief (cure?) in writing this autobiography. Not quite cured, though he is able to finally marry Penny and live quietly. Good for him.

Trivia note: Did you know George Clooney is exactly two days younger than me? The only movie star that IMDB shows as sharing my birthday is Mary Beth McDonough, who played the middle daughter on the Waltons.

Definitely recommended

No matter what your political perspective, there are plenty of authentic issues to get lathered up about. And I’m sure there are very few Americans who couldn’t find problems with the machinery of how our federal government operates.

So when an email comes along, with very serious and seemingly factual wording about how our Senators and Representatives have voted themselves a bountiful pension program–no matter how long or how short a time you serve in either house, you get (for starters) annual pension payments equal to your salary of the last year in office, plus cost of living raises–you find the message very easy to believe. Especially if the message is sent to you from a very credible source. I know I bought into it, even went so far as to write my duly elected trio.

But I should have known to check out Snopes’ Urban Legends Reference Pages first. They always have the clue. And so they did on Congressional Pensions too. No such pension plan exists, just another wacky concoction of an idiot with email and less than half a brain. Remember to check out the fantastic stories you see before you too fall victim!

No, I’m not gonna get cranky just because the Sweet One made me watch the craptastic Joe Millionaire last night (we’re down to one TV while the bathroom remodeling is done). Though that was painful.

This crank is inspired by the geniuses at Paramount. They apparently are just about to sign Tim Allen to star in a big screen take on ’50s TV sitcom Father Knows Best. You remember, the one that starred Robert Young as the dad and Jane Wyatt as the MOM, who have three kids already (Betty, Bud, and Kathy). But the studio jizzbots are apparently working on a script in which Dad is single and has a son who enters him in a Father of the Year contest under false pretenses. The essay, of course, wins and Dad is going to spill the beans as a lesson to Junior. Until he meets the judge, who just happens to be his perfect potential wife. Hijinks ensue. Hilarity, well that’s another thing entirely.

Ben Stiller as Starsky or Lucy Liu as an Angel is one thing, but please, let’s at least find a story/structure that comes within the same lightyear as the original if you need to use an existing name as a cheap way to sell your movie. Pretty please.

Bill Gurley is a general partner of VC firm Benchmark Capital and a frequent contributor to C|Net’s Tech News. Today he’s posted a Perspective column suggesting that many companies which currently sell their software in a cardboard box consider providing it on a commodity rack-mounted server instead. (This is for server-based software sold to corporations only.) Gurley, who I met when he was an associate with Hummer-Winblad and I a plebe at NetDynamics, points out half a dozen issues where a simple closed box alleviates customer or vendor pain points.

I have to say, though, that I think he’s wrong for the vast majority of applications. Some applications are little standalone islands and for them this delivery model might be fine. Gurley points to firewall vendors NetScreen and Check Point Software as an example; NetScreen follows the closed box configuration and is ramping up sales, while Check Point delivers only software and has been badly hurt in the last couple of years. However, most of the important corporate server applications are decidedly not islands nor can they be used as is out of the box. Even something as simple as a webserver requires significant customization to meet needs and you can forget about complex beast like an ERP or accounting suite.

I have a good friend who spent the better part of a year recently as product manager for a startup company which attempted to use this model to deliver software which was mildly more complex than a webserver. It actually was a webserver (Apache) with very sophisticated load balancing built in. This company had very smart, experienced, previously successful people at the top and directing product development and by many measures should have a had a clear path to success in even in the nastiness that was the 2001 tech selling market. But having to factor in the hardware just confused many issues internally and allowed customers to not clearly understand the value proposition of the product. And the company failed. Badly.

Gurley’s column, as written, doesn’t even mention this limitation of the suggested delivery model. He sure writes purty though.

I wish I played my guitar more often. Because Gibson, makers of fine guitars for more than half a century, is bringing electrics into the digital age: Guitars tune into digital sounds. Instead of having a standard (analog) cable jack, their new models will have an Ethernet port that can plug directly into a computer. I expect that (a) other manufacturers will follow quickly and (b) Gibson and companies will make specialized boxes (in the way Tivo, for example, is a specialized computer) to take advantage of the new feature. I myself prefer Fenders, especially my treasured 1977 Fender Telecaster, but this is way cool. [via Steven’s Notebook]

Not that Gibson is the only company working in this space either. Line 6 released the GuitarPort early last year. GuitarPort is a small box version of the company’s very cool Pod technology that takes a standard analog guitar cord as input but has a USB output which plugs into a PC plus PC software that controls the effects. But Line6 has taken the concept to the next level by building a website with many additional features and functions, the most useful of which is a huge selection of lessons based on real songs. The online service includes tracks which the company has gone back to the original masters and removed, say, the lead guitar track so you as the student can learn more easily. The box itself is only $229 (less than the expected additional cost for Gibson’s feature) and the online service is $7.99 per month. Not just a very cool product but also a very smart business model, eh?

I am sitting here in a freezing house this morning suffering from coffee withdrawal. Where is the building inspector? I know the deal is he shows between 9 and 12 but come on, I want to go get coffee already! And the house is freezing because the contractors insist on having the front door open. I just had to go outside to move my SUV and it is actually colder in here than out there, what’s up with that?

But the work seems to be going well this morning. Most of the new vanity is in place and they are beginning to cut the cultured marble pieces for the shower. Outside, making a lot of dust, so I had to go out there and move the truck so it wouldn’t get covered. With the dust.

Damn, the cold is making it difficult to type!

Just to have them easily readable in the order intended and to make the connection between the poems explicit:

Lament For Kena

As you Burn

Kena’s Last Moment

Kevin Spacey: Alien or not, you decide. The people behind the movie (director Iain Softley, screenwriter Charles Leavitt, original novel by Gene Brewer) leave it ambiguous right up to the end. And by that I mean the closing credits, they never come out and say one way or the other. Hope you’re not dissapointed. However, after the success of the movie, Brewer was able to publish two sequels and I assume they bring some answer closer to hand. Interesting that Jeff Bridges plays the psychiatrist working with Prot (Spacey’s alien character name) since he played one of the seminal ‘modern’ aliens in Starman so many years ago.

Unfortunately, like so many other worthy attempts, K-PAX does not succeed as a film. The attempt to create a parallel subplot concerning the relationship of Bridges to his wife and children just doesn’t have enough substance, for example, and Softley pushes too hard with visual effects (such as repeated shots of faces merging and mirrored in window glass) to define what should be in the plot.

Not recommended

Making a harsh right turn, we watched the last 40 minutes of the Jet Li film The One immediately after this finished. The violence is such a contrast from K-PAX but the underlying theme of identity in a chaotic universe is quite similar.

The last sight I saw was a massive flame

Amazingly bright yellows, oranges, and reds

When all too soon black squeezed in at the edges.

Then there was no more color I could see

Though the sound came louder and louder

Waves crashing in, crowding in, painful.

Heat pushed up against my body, shoving

Making my skin turn and twist

Turn colors I could no longer see for the black.

My friend Paula was standing next to me a moment before

Then she struck me with force that sent us tumbling

Agony running through me as I hit pavement.

Barely heard, she whimpered; barely understood “Goodbye!”

I made to say same to her but my lips

Melted too quickly from the onslaught.

Pain, all that was left to me, no other sense

Than this semblance of touch, undesired

Raging through my body, all that I can feel.

Where did the bright yellows and the crushing sound

And the overwhelming heat and PAIN come from?

GOODBYE GOODBYE goodbye.

Yeah, the work on the new bathroom is coming along nicely. The building inspector was here yesterday early to check over the plumbing and gave a thumbs up; another inspector is scheduled to visit Monday morning to check another aspect of the work. The contractor, Frank, appears to have done well laying in cement to even out the floor under the shower. The new exhaust fan/light fixture is installed in the ceiling and the shower pan and sheetrock walls around the shower are also in place. I had expected there would be more than one worker, with the other person installing the new vanity and related pieces while Frank does the shower and toilet, but I suppose this only makes a difference of a day’s duration in the job. As long as it comes out right. And, at least so far, knock on wood, I haven’t had so much as a peep of the kind of trouble so many people complain about when it comes to remodeling and contractors. “Excellent,” as Mr. Burns says.

I concede that you are not a terrorist

That you are a man of passion

Who happens to enjoy the sight of fireballs.

In the long dark of when it was simply a match

That burned down to the last

You only shook your fingers in the breeze.

When by accident a whole book of them was lit

You smiled and dropped it on a line of ants

Smelling the sweetly acrid whisps of smoke.

School may have taught you maths and geography

History did more than teach of a past

Glorious but lost in the arms of a beast.

A lunch time brought word of rebellion

Arms against the beast and no reply is heard

So a match is sparked within your breast.

Consider the holy words, day after day

Consider the shame of being kept from the true path

Consider the shame of being kept from spreading the Word.

Then the flame inside is fanned, the smell of burning insects

The beast must be burned, let out the word

Let the Word be the burning spear as of old.

All who fail to tremble before you

Must burn in shame and burn to quench your thirst

To once again stand tall as you burn.

I concede that you are not a terrorist

That you are a man of passion

Who happens to enjoy the sight of fireballs.

Do not remind me that the sand slipping

Between your fingers is not the same

Substance beating within your heart.

Not that stars shine steadily and only

Appear to blink when filtered by our atmosphere

Filled with protective gasses.

The Sun shines all the time, not only when

Visible to my eyes–Kena is awake in Perth

When I sleep and she sees it bright.

A woman I knew well for a short while,

A vacation years ago to the other side of the world

A memory that burned bright.

I sleep and dream of your fireballs blossoming

With agony and bloody trails facing away

From Kena, whose back is turned forever.

She no longer sees the Sun while I sleep

No longer writes me beautiful letters

Of the feeling of sand slipping through her fingers.

The main contractor showed up today, on time, and started working on giving me a new bathroom. This is very big for me yet a little unnerving because of all the bad stories one hears about contractors. The day went very well though–the man here ripped out the entire bathroom and the tile flooring. So now there’s a big hole where I used to have a shower, a vanity, towel racks, mirror, and medicine cabinet. He left the toilet because, well, two toilets are always better than one.

  

Tomorrow is prep work mostly, I think, and perhaps a visit from the City of Mountain View building inspector. This will look so good when done!

After days of poorly and not at all disguised negotiations, Detroit Lions CEO Matt Millen came to an agreement with Steve Mariucci on a five year, $25 million deal. Not only does Mooch more than double the salary he would have gotten from the 49ers (although he would have earned it for doing nothing but relaxing), he gets to go home as well. Though he does take over a team that is more or less craptastic, having won only ffive games in the last two seasons.

ESPN is reporting, though, that the new coach will have more say in personnel matters including the hiring of a new personnel director. Which will come in handy when he looks over a roster seriously lacking in star power. Second year QB Joey Harrington and All Pro DE Robert Porcher are terrific but the cast mostly drops off a cliff after them. ESPN’s Pasquarelli suggests they’ll use the second pick in April’s draft to take Michigan State star receiver Charles Rogers and I think he’s quite right to recommend the selection to help fill the seats at brand new Ford Field. Got to start somewhere.

ESPN is also running a front page poll on which of the new coaches (Parcells, Del Rio, Mariucci, and Lewis) will get their team in the playoffs first. Current results show Parcells in front with over 61% and the other three way back. Of course internet polls aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on and I would say that Del Rio’s Jaguars are the closest to getting back in, even though the Cowboys had a couple more wins last year.

Nicholas Kristof’s latest Op-Ed column for the NY Times, ‘A Sea of Fire,’ or Worse?, presents a chilling scenario on how the Korean Crisis might very well proceed. I’m getting the feeling that Iraq, while an important and probably easier target, should not be the Bush Administration’s primary focus any more. How about you? Let the inspectors have more time, Hussein isn’t going to get the bomb any time soon. Whereas North Korea will (a few very soon and dozens within no more than a couple of years) and has missiles to deliver warheads throughout most of the Far East, maybe even to the US before much longer.

garret, I sure hope you never have to say I told you so on this steaming pile of craptastic planning.

This would be me and my son rather than me and my pal’s son:

Just saw a half hour of standup comedy with Carlos Mencia on Comedy Central, an episode of Comedy Central Presents. This guy was excellent but his comedy was so real it almost hurt. A more modern, Latino Geroge Carlin or maybe even towards Lenny Bruce without necessarily needing profanity and obscenity to make his points about society. Amazing to find out that Carlos gave up a career in insurance too. Catch him if you can.

Carlos Rules!

You could look at The Majestic in two very different ways. The easy way is a a straightforward dramatic piece where the protagonist starts high, has a tough break, starts to recover, seems to recover, has it taken away, and then in a daring gamble wins it all back. That would be expected, almost formulaic, in a Hollywood movie. And you don’t get much more Hollywood than a movie produced by Warner Brothers.

Or you could look at this collaboration between writer Michael Sloane and his high school (Hollywood High School, actually) pal, director Frank Darabont (Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile), as an attempt to satirize Hollywood a la The Player but even more so because even the script plays it so straight. But the framing scenes, where we see star Jim Carrey sitting in an office chair and hear the clearly recognizable voices of famous movie directors like Carl and Rob Reiner, Gary Marshall, and Sydney Pollack discussing how to improve the script Carrey’s character (Fred Appleton) is writing, seem to almost mock the remainder of the film as too formulaic, too perfect.

Carrey’s writer faces the archetypical problem of Hollywood players in the early 1950s, when The Majestic takes place, of coming to the attention to the witchhunt of the House Unamerican Activities Committee, Joe McCarthy’s fellow Red haters. His character’s name, sort of, in tribute to Dalton Trumbo, is Trimble. Trumbo was a famous screenwriter whose career and life were nearly ruined by the committee on trumped up charges. If you don’t know what the blacklist was, Google will tell you.

Instead of facing up to this trouble, Appleton gets drunk and decides to take a late night drive up the coast; a few hours later he’s driving off a bridge and barely survives the drop. The next morning a dog finds him knocked out, washed up on some beach. An old man, the dog’s owner, comes to his rescue and takes into a tiny little backwater town. Where he is recognized as the lost (and thought dead) since World War II son of Harry Trimble (Martin Landau, such a good actor). Appleton has amnesia, truly, and has no idea if he is Luke Trimble or Joe Blow. I guess they didn’t think of checking his fingerprints, huh?

Eventually his past catches up to him, his car is found, the committee’s investigators confront him, and he regains his memory. But in the meanwhile Luke’s return has brought life back to a dead town. Joy and the 1000 watt Carrey smile and so this turn is devastating. All of sudden the townsfolk admit to Appleton that they realized long before that he wasn’t Luke but “the town needed Luke.” He returns to Los Angeles but, channeling the real Luke’s spirit, defies history, his own character, and the threat of jail (quite a few people went for so-called contempt of Congress in the real deal) to tell the fascists where they can stick their dastardly behavior.

I guess which of the two ways to look at this film is up to each viewer. I certainly didn’t find any mention of the odder interpretation mentioned elsewhere. But as a Deconstructionist might say, the meaning must be taken from the text and not from the author’s intention; either can be held up.

Recommended

I had reservations about watching Life as a House (2001) but Tivo recorded it and I wanted a distraction this afternoon. Not much to the story and it’s all very obvious, especially the connections between the physical and the spiritual/emotional. Well acted and nicely shot and directed.

George Monroe (Kevin Kline) is sick of his job making architectural models but that’s okay because, as the film opens, his boss fires him after 20 years with no notice. As he leaves the office building, he collapses and is taken to the hospital where he tells a friendly nurse that no one loves him or touches him. At the same time, his son Sam (Hayden Christensen, Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars) makes a pathetic attempt to hang himself and when his remarried mother Robin Kimball (Kristin Scott Thomas) dashes up to see what made the crashing noise finds out, she hardly registers an emotion before turning away. The divorce was ten years ago. In other words, everyone’s dead on the inside already and would be more or less happy if the outside died as well.

But it’s not time for that. George decides to use his few remaining months (cancer) to tear down a piece of crap house he inherited from his own unloving dad and force Sam to spend summer vacation helping him build a replacement. A few days of pouting and stealing Dad’s Vicodin, then a ‘friendly’ non-sexual shower with next door neighbor hottie Alyssa (Jena Malone, who will make an amazing temptress in some movie five years from now) is all Sam needs to start growing up.

Sam starts pitching in and, boy, is that last bit of tearing down the old shack cathartic! Surprising no one, not only does Robin realize she still loves George, Alyssa and Sam get together (crowding out her pimping, drugdealing, spoiled boyfriend), then, just as George is dying, after he’s finally told his ex and son, even Robin’s current (dead on the inside) husband catches the spark and the two begin to makeup. Face it, the story is treacle, trite, predictable. Somehow I wasn’t surprised in the least to find out that the script was by the same person, Mark Andrus, who wrote Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood–a man! As Rotten Tomatoes summed Life as a House up: manipulative tearjerker.

Mildly recommended for the quality of acting