Today is that Day of Days....

National Gorilla Suit Day!
Yes indeed that sacred holiday when we all dress up as our simian forebearers and celebrate our Rational-Darwinist Heritage.

For a succinct precis' on this most important of holidays, go here.

Now however this great tradition is under assault from decadent land locked elites and corrupt panderers in Washington DC who explicitly DENY that National Gorilla Suit Day has anything to do with the Precious Laws of Natural Selection!
These anti-evolutionary fanatics want to outlaw the traditional National Gorilla Suit Day Greetings such as: "Man is descended from the Ape!" and "Happy Darwin!"
Frantic bearded spook worshippers like Senator Bill Frist and Liddy Dole are TRYING to take Darwin out the holiday and turn it into some sort of revealed-religion costume pageant devoid of all meaning!!!!
DON'T LET THEM DO IT!
American was founded and made strong by MEN who proudly donned simian costumes on National Gorilla Suit Day and PROCLAIMED the truth of Humanity's origins as a simple terrestrial anthropoid from the African plains!
Let us all adopt gorilla garb for one day a year and join hands all over the U.S. Ape to reaffirm our FAITH in science and old timey rationalism!!

On a Second Viewing of "The Empire Strikes Back"

hadn't seen this bad baby since 1980 or so, surpirsingly it hold up nicely. Mark Hamill's acting hadn't quite tipped over into the "overwhelmed" category and Irwin Kershner's direction manages to gloss over George Lucas's preposterous dialogue and still get everyone's story arc done.
It suddenly hit me that no less than five characters in the film (Yoda, Vader, Chewie, C-3PO & R2D2) are naught but mixtures of costumery, actors/body builders and prime voice over artists. We take this for granted today in "Lord of the Rings" etc, but back then, Lucas made the FX into actors...even if they did have to talk like crude cartoons.
The other big revelation was Yoda's misty eyed description of the "force" could easily substitute for Dr. Wilhelm Reich's crackpot notions about "orgone energy".

Otherwise, the film is a sort of false high in every way, it throws down two or three good meaty revelations, drifts ways from the gee whiz tone of the first film in favor of something darker and sets up a myriad of lofty expectation for the sequel.
None of which Lucas was able to satisfy when it came time to trot out that two hour toy commercial called "Return of the Jedi".
My disaffection was complete back then, and its largely due to the good impression the "Empire Strikes Back" had made on me.

If there is a systemic flaw in Lucas' faux cosmology it is the late revelation that Leia is too, a potential Jedi. For all that her heritage and link to Darth Vader means all but nothing to either the Sith Lord or Young Skywalker as their confrontation unfolds...this seems strange to me.
Frankly it is loose ends like this that make me doubt "Star Wars" was ever this extended super script that Lucas wrote in film school. I think the original film hit it big and George started improvising from then on.

Nuked on a Monday...

or "Emily's Reasons why she Got Cancelled"

Wow! "Emily's Reasons Why Not" a heavily hyped sitcom starring the scrumtious Heather Graham got the ax by ABC after one paltry episode!
This puts Ms. Graham in a very exclusion Cancellation Club that includes such singleton lost causes as Turn On. This was ABC's Tim Conway hosted answer to Rowan and Martin's Laugh In infamous for being cancelled after one broadcast after Heather Graham-ish megahype.
Oh well, 12 million dollars of advertising and ubiquitous signage on the Red Line really can't make you popular after all.

Hey Heather if you are reading this, The Bad Poets Society is in the market for a celebrity reader.
Compensation TBA.

I saw Commander Adama Kissing Colonial President Roslin....

What was he thinking? That she is dying of cancer and this might be his only chance to find out what its like to mack on a superior officer?

Okay so yeah, I watch Battlestar Galactica religiously, what of it?
It is after all, the tightest most complusively watchable space opera to come along since Deep Space Nine. I mean this is akin to "Hill Street Blues" in outer space, ruthlessly realistic, plot driven and heedless of the dopey-ass sci fi tv shibboleths.
Okay so Katee Sackhoff lurches from tears to hysteria in every ep and William Bamber is reedy-sounding....no matter da sumbitch works!
This show is especially pleasing as it vindicates a long held theory of mine, that one shouldn't re-make good teevee shows or movies. For example an update of "The Fugitive" is pointless, a re-make however of something a little forlorn like "Mister Terrific" automatically has possibilities because there is nowhere to go but up!

I may stop watching "Lost" when things finally get too contrived a'la the "X-Files" but I'm hooked on Battlestar Galactica til the last crdits roll.

The Producers (2005)

In a perfect world, Nathan Lane would be leading Hollywood comedy star. He is as funny playing it gay as he is playing it straight.
And dats pretty damn funny.
As it is though, he is the best thing in the above film, loud obnoxious, greedy...and funny.
Sadly though, "The Producers" is a vastly watered down affair compared to the Broadway "original".
Indeed, a lot got thrown out on the way to the multiplex, notably Springtime for Hitler's central theme which is De Fuhrer's notional "victory" in WWII as a consequence of triumphing in a dance contest.
Gary Beach does a great star turn as the gayest-Hitler seen since Derek Jacobi did the Fuhrer...but it pales next to the original's frantic pace.
Will Ferrell is utterly predictable as the Nazi-author and star of the show...Mathew Broderick turns in a curiously robotic performance as Leopold Bloom the nerdy accountant who sets the whole scheme in motion. Uma Thurman as the Swedish love interest does her best, but she just cannot gyrate like the Broadway engenue....hell Lane and Broderick can shake their groove things better!
Well what of it?
From film to Broadway musical back to a film...from Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel to Nathan Lane and Matt Broderick.
Full circle.

King Kong (2005)

Fun movie, could've done with some judicious cuts for timing's sake. There is a fine performance therein from the ubiquitous Jack Black and a real star turn from Naomi Watts as a down on her luck vaudeville comic who falls hard for a thirty foot gorilla.
Adrien Brody though, plays the luckless writer-hero as a sort of Stallone by way of Marc Blitzstein...and his nostils make Kong's look puny by comparison.
Mostly my complaint is that the CGI action scenes are too frantic by half. Years ago the speed standard was set at a fast but human pace by everyone from Harold Lloyd to Bruce Lee. Now when it comes time to make with the dinosaur stampedes everyone moves at a pace considered coherent by an editor slaving over a computer...in other words at an inhuman rate of speed.
As such the dramatic line of the action scenes is lost and we are left with a Dali-esque jumble of imagery.
That my friends has to change.
Still and all that Kong moves like an ape at least, and his mastery of that prehistoric jungle is a function of his brains and more importantly his will to power.
That comes across just fine....he even gets a Shakespearean death scene, far more sentimental and lurid than even the 1933 original.
And what the hell, it beats the hell out of the odious and contemptuous 1976 re-make with Jessica Lange even if it'll never quite eclipse the raw power of it's New Deal namesake.
Now I wonder if Peter Jackson will take destiny in hand and remake "Son of Kong"?
If he does lets hope Junior comes across with a little more dignity even if he stole the show when Skull Island (spoiler) finally sinks.
:)

"Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve: 2006"

On the one hand I was horrified to see Mister Clark with that trademark rictus stumbling through boilerplate teleprompter copy thanks to his ill-timed stroke last year.
On the other hand as unintelligible as he was, I'd rather listen to Dick Clark, stroke and all than his two co-hosts the oily & insincere Ryan Seacrest or his sidekick the robotically bubbly Marysol Castro...to say nothing or their West Coast anchor, the animatronic skeleton currently touring under the name Hilary Duff.

Happy New Year to all.

According to Today's Globe

The Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square has raised 200K off their planned 400K Capital Campaign. They are therefore extending the campaign til' february 28th 2006.
Anyone who wishes to contribute to this cause can just go-here.
If it can possibly be avoided, then the Brattle must be saved...they are alone in mixing repertory titles with off beat new releases with a real zeal for community service.
We will be making a donation ourselves in the name of Channel Zero very shortly.
How about you?
I mean, where else can we see "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", "The Chimes at Midnight" or "Kiss Me Deadly" on the big-indoor screen?
Otherwise, the repertory impulse will be acted upon by the likes of Channel Zero, which while we have potent cost control factors and celerity to our credit, we DON'T have access to an ongoing big screen venue.
See my point, we need the Brattle it is a social and cultural necessity, if it were to close the arts in Metro Boston would suffer an irreparable blow.

Spell Checks and Sacraments

In a certain RC Church nestled in the Hills and Hollows of Arlington Mass, the Advent Missal renders the hymn "The First Noel" as "The First Nowell".
For one brief shining moment I thought Archbishop O'Malley had been forced to lay off his proof-readers in the local religious recession, turns out though "The First Nowell" is a legit Old English form of the title.
Of course, what a local Catholic Church is doin' pretentiously using Old English in its Missal, I'll never know.

"Good Night and Good Luck"

I didn't think much of George Clooney director after "The Confessions of a Dangerous Minds" this biography of veteran TV newsman Edward R. Murrow though, changed my mind.
Avoided is the first mistake of film biography, doing the whole life with relentless speed a'la "Ali".
No instead, we follow Murrow in the lead up and aftermath of a couple of 1953 television broadcasts criticizing Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. Staying on focus with respect to a few key incidents in a man's life is often good film-making IMHO.
David Strahairn impersonates Murrow to perfection, quizzical, ironic a little fatalistic...he knows one way or another the good times of "quality" TV journalism must end sooner or later.
No my only objection to the film is that it assigns a grandiose part to Murrow in McCarthy's fall. True the broadcasts did their part, but Joe was already deep into a suicidal attack on Dwight Eisenhower's Presidency when Murrow jumped ugly on him.
no Mccarthy did himself in, of course his response to Murrow's broadcasts in which he incoherently accuses the newsman of being a Wobbly stands as a sort of sad anti-classic teevee moment.
"Good night and Good Luck" is still lingering at the Lexington Cinema if'n anyone is interested.

Channel Zero Returns Tomorrow Afternoon...

Dear Friends:

Channel Zero is returning to Movies on a Menu for one last time this year. Join Us next Sunday Afternoon December 11th at 2pm sharp when we screen back to back episodes of The Jerry Lewis Show (1967) and the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (October 1968).
This time we opted for a unique clash of styles running the gamut from Tom and Dick Smothers’ controversial topical comedy to Jerry Lewis’ old timey vaudeville schtick.
Or as we like to think of it “comedy versus...even more comedy”.

Also along for the ride will the usual guest stars mostly notably The Beatles who contribute some musical footage for the Smothers Brothers. There will also be an appearance by mock Presidential Candidate Pat Paulsen and Sonny & Cher.
So please join us, Movies on a Menu (Arlington’s first “DVD Coffee House” ) is also a great place to do some holiday shopping and features a complete snack bar and coffee menu.

Presented by:
Channel Zero (Suggested Donation: $5.00)
Now in its tenth year of Genteel Video Transcendence
Movies on a Menu
148 Mass Ave
Arlington Ma. 02474-8689
781-316-8668
www.moviesonamenu.com
www.channel0.blogspot.com
"Jerry Lewis versus The Smothers Brothers"
Sunday, December 11th at 2pm (sharp!)

This one will be fun, we've got SmoBro in the middle of the 1968 Presidential campaign and Jerry Lewis in the middle of his mid-life crisis and perpetual quest for a alternate comic persona. Something...different from his deafening "dopey kid" act.

Flaming Rationality Moment:

Melissa Wentworth, local aesthete and patriot asks the following question about the original King Kong (1933:
"Why is the Door to Kong's Kingdom on Skull Island so...big?"
"If the goal is, to throw virgin sacrifices in, and keep Kong Out, then a smaller door would be job-one".

We have no answer to this entirely sensible observation.

Giving thanks

for American's Annual Familial group-high tryptophan...putting the US out of it's skull since the Glory Days of Plymouth Rock.

Cultural Pronouncement #1

"Girls are the New Boys".
remember that....25 years ago, when an 11 year old girl wanted a career in medicine it was still assumed she meant nursing. Now, today, she will have nothing less than Med School and a sinecure as a neurologist.
Times change, so start saving all you parents out there.

No Show Notes for Tonite's Screening of "The Man with a Cross"

directed by Roberto Rossellini, I don't really know enough about the neo-realist style to generate credible discourse.
I do find it interesting that viritually all the post-war Neo Realist machers got their start not only under fascism, but indeed most of them directed propaganda films glorifying Mussolini's regime.
Other than that "The Man with a Cross" is a strangely bifurcated film, it is at once a paean of praise to the coming Axis victory, yet at the same time it is curiously defensive, relying on the eternal verities symbolized by it's catholic chaplain hero rather than any ideological histrionics.
Regimes in trouble from within & without tends to fall back on such traditional values when things get tough.
Anyhow, don't forget tonight at Movies on Menu (148 Mass Ave in East Arlington MA. A few doors down from Dagg's Deli) we will be screening "The Man with a Cross" (1943) at 7:30pm sharp.
Suggested Donation" $5
Movies on a Menu is right on the #77 & #79 bus routes...

Channel Zero returns this Week!!!

Join us at....

Movies on a Menu (148 Mass Ave in the teeming heart of East Arlington) on Wednesday November 9th at 7:30pm for a rare screening of "The Man with a Cross" (1943), Fascist Italy's last real propaganda film.
Desperate to sell a war-weary population on a failed dream of world conquest, Mussolini's regime evoked religion and the defense of western civilization against the hordes of bolshevism.

An Italian military chaplain is captured by the Russians on the Eastern front, his faith is put to the ultimate test as the Soviets and the Axis battle for supremacy over a tiny Ukrainian village.

Directed in a bravura style Roberto Rosselini that suggests the coming neo-realist school, "The Man with a Cross" (aka "L'Uomo Dalla Croce") is an authentic rarity to all students of cinema in general and totalitarian propaganda in particular.
In Italian
Subtitled in English.
Presented by:
Channel Zero (Suggested Donation: $5.00)
Now in its tenth year of Genteel Video Transcendence
Movies on a Menu
148 Mass Ave
Arlington Ma. 02474-8689
781-316-8668
www.moviesonamenu.com

C'mon folks lets try and close the year on a strong note...

Classic Teevee Conundrum...

how come Barbara Eden has to keep her belly button covered up on "I Dream of Jeannie" when Ron Ely could run around and baring his for all and sundry on "Tarzan"?
What made his more decorous than hers?

Pick of the Week...

Undoubtedly it is Betsy Sherman's four week long Jerry Lewis series at the Coolidge Corner on Wednesday Nights. Tonight she is screening "The Ladies Man" which is not our favorite Lewis title but loaded up with Betsy's unique commentary (Ms. Sherman is to Jerry Lewis what Channel Zero is to Orson Welles)it will surely be an interesting evening.
I went to see "The Bellboy" last week, that has to be one of Lewis' best comedies absent "The Nutty Professor", it was $10 well spent IMHO.

Question for the week:

d'ye think Britney Spears has caught "husband" Kevin Federline schtupping the poolboy yet?

If you find the anthropomorphized Penguins in

"March of the Penguins" more than a bit much, then definitely check out Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man".
Therein one "Timothy Treadwell" a well-meaning bear-activist spends six months out of the year living among Alaskan grizzly bears trying to save them from poachers and their ilk. Over the course of some 13 Years Tim began to believe he was living among people, took no firearms into the wilderness, convinced his girlfriend to come along and then one day in October 2003 he and Amie Huegenard were eaten by an aging starving grizzly.
Before the iron law of irony caught up with him, Tim shot 100 hours of sumptuous video footage of the bears that represents Tim's legacy. Th camera also catches Tim in a virtual fugue state of fury, ranting at the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service and whatever seems to irk him that day on a far off Alaskan shore.
Tim was, sad to say, completely crazy....he lived among wild animals with little personal protection and took his girlfriend along for the ride getting her killed in the process.
Was he passionate?
Yes.
Do bears and sundry endangered species desperately need passionate advocates?
Hell yes now more than ever.
But Tim? I think Tim thought he was a sort of Peter Pan of the Bears...one of them so to speak.
But unlike Pan the beastie got him.
Its a sad film in many ways...Tim was an American Original but like many eccentrics, paid the price in madness.