Jerry O’Connell is a Hater

Jerry O’Connell has suggested government intervention to break-up what he is calling the city of Boston’s “monopoly” on professional sports.  Speaking from Maxim magazine’s massive pre-Super Bowl party (a popular pulpit for invoking government-imposed restrictions of civil rights,) O’Connell expressed his dissatisfaction with the successes of Boston-area sports teams this season.

Being from New York, I am certain that O’Connell is quite familiar with sports monopolies as the city has been home to the most overpaid, owner-produced monopoly in the history of sports.   However, with the Red Sox having won the the World Series this past season and the undefeated New England Patriots on the door-step of another Super Bowl victory and a piece of NFL history, Mr. O’Connell feels something needs to be done. “It looks like the Celtics are going to win the season as well,” O’Connell said. “If the Boston Bruins, the NHL team, wins, the federal government has to break them up. They have to take a team away — they have to.”

In spite of Jerry O’Connell’s ability to win prominent roles in such Hollywood blockbusters as Joe’s Apartment and Kangaroo Jack, I still have a hard time taking a man who makes statements, like those above, too seriously.  However, without lending too much credence to this idiot’s call-to-action, I would like to remind him of the following facts:

1. The Boston Red Sox have won two World Series titles in the past four years due to their strong development of farm talent within their own system.  During that same time, the Yankees have continued a steady trend of throwing all of their money at the latest flavor-of-the-week in hopes that he will be the ‘missing piece’ that will put them back on top.
2. The Boston Celtics have spent the last two decades in total mediocrity after their heyday in the 1980s.  The team only truly became a consistent contender again this season with the acquisition of Kevin Garnett, a league MVP and the most highly sought-after player on the block this off-season.  The Celtics made a good move with the Timberwolves to get KG and are now reaping the benefits.
3. The Boston Bruins are not a dominant team.  Their current record is 27-20-5, putting them third out of the five teams in their division and sixth among teams in the play-off race.  While it appears the B’s are in good shape to make the play-offs, they will certainly be a long-shot once they get there.
4. The New England Patriots are undefeated all year and playing in today’s Super Bowl game, their fourth Super Bowl of the decade (so far.)  The Pats are just that good; there is nothing more to say about that.

That being said… stop the hate, Jerry.  It is your city’s turn to suck at sports for a while. Get over it!

‘A Boy and His Dog:’ One Man’s Review

This was one of those movies that had slipped under my movie-watching nerd radar for many years but after finding it streaming on the web the other day I decided to finally dedicate the 90 minutes it required.  As a result, I was very pleased with my decision; Time well spent.

The setting.  It is the future (somewhere around 2032, I believe) and the world has been destroyed after World War IV (and apparently a lot of Kennedys in the White House.)  The city of Phoenix, AZ has been reduced to a desolate, smelly wasteland which has become uninhabited save for a few ignorant, rape-crazed thugs roaming the desert (much like Tucson, AZ in our current time.)

The plot.  Vic is a loaner wandering the desert with his dog, Blood, with whom he can communicate telepathically (of course.)  Blood acts as a female-finder who sniffs out females, in a world that has become a bigger sausage-fest than a UofA frat party, for Vic in exchange for the food that Vic, as the human, can steal.   This is the type of movie, however, whose plot somewhat defies relation in the written word (certainly in as few words as I intend to write on the subject) and so suffice it to say that having a wise-ass, telepathic dog in your story can never be a poor decision.

The Commentary: Not necessarily a huge Don Johnson fan myself, I thought that Ol’ Sonny Crockett played the part of Vic very effectively and had some excellent back-and-forth ‘dialog’ with Blood.  I have often heard this movie compared with A Clockwork Orange but, for the most part, it reminded me a lot more of Repo Man (perhaps due to the character similarities between Vic (Johnson) and Otto (Estevez) from Repo Man.)  Once Vic ventures into the bizarre underground world things do become a bit more acid-trippy and reminiscent of the aforementioned Kubrick film but these scenes occur very late in A Boy and His Dog and appear in rather stark contrast to what has been a very Mad Max type of movie up to that point.  The last line is truly what defines this movie and if you like the line, you will like A Boy and His Dog, if not… well, good luck to you.

The Verdict: I will rate the film using the standard Bruce Campbell (BC) scale.  A Boy and His Dog was very entertaining and, moreover, my kind of cult movie.  It’s probably not for everyone but, then again, what is? I give it four out of five BCs and a proud pat on the back.

The Bruce Campbell Scale of Film Excellence:

  / 5

PSA – “Dictated But Not Read is from What Movie”

In checking my blog stats over the past week, I have noticed that many of the hits I receive each day (approx 20%) come from people searching either for the term “Dictated but not Read” or from people searching for something to the effect of “Dictated but not read is from what movie.”

I can only assume that the click-throughs that I get from this latter group of search results are from people attempting to discover the origin of a certain line from a film and who, consequently, are disappointed by the lack of answers in the content within. Well, we here at the Dictated blog aim to please so, in addition to providing some of the most provocative editorials on the web, we will now also supply the answers to your questions about movie quotes.

I can only assume that the movie from which people are recalling the phrase “Dictated but not read” is the 2004 Wes Anderson film, “The Life Aquatic: with Steve Zissou” starring Bill Muarray, Owen Wilson, and Anjelica Huston.

The phrase in question occurs in the film when Ned Plimpton (Wilson) presents a letter he received in reply to one he wrote to Zissou (Murray) as a child. The response from Zissou is rather generic and capped-off at the end with the notation that it has been “dictated but not read” adding to general lack of personal interest being shown in the text.

So, there you have it. Let it never be said that we give nothing back to the community and, to that end, I would like to offer up the special skills of the staff of Dictated: But Not Read. If anyone else out there in cyberspace has any movie quotes to which they can not quite put a title, send a question our way and I guarantee that we will be able to help. (Note: Not an actual guarantee– but we will do our best.)

‘Cloverfield:’ One Man’s Review

Well, I had a few hours to kill this evening so I went to see Cloverfield. I call this ‘One Man’s Review’ because I was the one man in the theater. Actually, that is not entirely true. A young couple joined me about ten minutes into the film and alleviated the solitude of the massive auditorium. Unfortunately they also did not show up until after the half-dozen “Please be quiet to avoid disturbing the other viewers” messages had already rolled and I was forced to watch the movie beyond the screen of their PDAs as the texted incessantly.

Anyway, the movie itself was enjoyable. I was somewhat leery about going to see this as it was not only less than 90 minutes long but none of the previews had showed the slightest glimpse of the ‘monster’ either. I half-expected to show up to the theater to learn that the monster destroying NYC turned out to be some emotion like ‘hate’ or ‘intolerance’ personified (or perhaps, ‘monsterified’) into a destructive being. Well, without revealing too much, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there is a ‘real’ monster and it was not overly evident that it was an allegory for anything irritating.

The shakey-cam and overall first-person dynamic was reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project or the handy-cam footage from the morning of 9/11 and was effective without requiring the application of any Dramamine. The is an general human drama going on throughout but, as you might expect, the film relies heavily on the action and dramatic special effects to carry the plot.

The most frightening aspect of the evening turned out to be the idiot on Route 577 who came at me going the wrong direction on a divided road-way on the way home. Then again, I guess that’s just part of driving in North Jersey.

I will rate the film using the standard Bruce Campbell (BC) scale. All in all, Cloverfield was enjoyable, but not great. I give it three out of five BCs.

The Bruce Campbell Scale of Film Excellence:

/ 5

Not to Belittle the Dead But…

…that is exactly what I am about to do.

Some graduate student in England (not that we should hold that against him) recently killed himself playing a drinking game.  Get this, he and his “mates” were mimicking a game which they first saw being played in the movie ‘American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile.’  How much of a loser do you have to be to attend graduate school and yet also not only watch an idiotic movie like that but attempt to recreate it as well?

I clicked on the article about this guy because the link said something about a student dying from an ‘American Pie’ drinking game.  I thought to myself, I don’t even recall the characters in ‘American Pie’ playing any drinking games but apparently I had forgotten that I saw the original movie and, unfortunately, the sequel as well.  I did not, however, see any of the endless parade of other spin-offs that followed.  I thought about going to see ‘American Wedding’ briefly but then realized that there was no need to go spend $15 at the movie theater when I could just beat my head against the wall at home and achieve the same sensation as I would watching that film.  They should make warning labels for movies that bad.

Why Eugene Levy has shackled his career to so many of these movies is beyond me (… oh wait, money.  I forgot.)  Either way, its a good thing that, as a Jew, you do not believe in Hell, Mr. Levy, because if you were a Catholic I am certain the Pope would have damned you to there long ago for your role in the perpetuation of the ‘American Pie’ series of films.

The father of the young man who died was quoted as saying, “Every shot that David took was like another bullet.”  It was?  That seems like a pretty poor comparison.  I mean, was this kid a complete light-weight or something?  If I take six shots of tequila I will be pretty intoxicated but still able to function; if someone were to unload a .38 revolver into my gut I think I would probably be in markedly worse shape.

Slovenian Chicken Risotto–It’s made of PEOPLE!

Be careful when dining in the hospital cafeteria in Izola, Slovenia… or perhaps you should be more careful as a patient at this hospital since you might just end up on the cafeteria anyway.

A doctor recently sent a mysterious piece of meat, which he found in the cafeteria’s chicken risotto, away for testing after adamantly decrying it not to be chicken.  Indeed the doc was correct and the secret ingredient, in this case, turned out to be a human tongue.  The hospital brass believes it is possible that a doctor could have, “unwittingly dropped the tongue in the food after treating a patient.”

 

No, this doesn’t look good at all.  A clear case of Beef Wellington if I have ever seen one.

First of all, the term ‘treating the patient’ is a bit euphemistic here, don’t you think?  It was a human tongue!  He was not treating a patient; he was cutting someone’s tongue off!  All that aside, why would he take it with him?  I know Slovenia probably is not the archetype of medical science or hygiene but why would a doctor pocket a tongue and go to lunch with it.  The only possible reason that I can see for it, would be to do exactly what he did, and put it into the chicken risotto.

The most shocking line of the whole story for me, however, was not the bit above about how the management thinks a doctor could have unknowingly dropped a patient’s tongue into the daily special, but rather the spin from the hospital’s spokesman, “I can say clearly that we never used patients’ parts in any of our dishes.”

…but one of your own doctors just proved that you had human tongue in the chicken risotto.  So, unless this guy is implying that he knows the source of the human tongue and that it came from someone who was not a patient, I think I would say with crystal clarity that they have used patients’ parts in their dishes (at least once.)  And hey, when it happens once, can we ever really be sure it won’t happen again?  I am not sure how appetizing the idea of chicken risotto from the cafeteria in a Slovenian hospital sounds to begin with, and that before you learn that there might be a human tongue in it.

I’ll stick with Chinese food… at least then I can be sure what kind of meat I am eating: cat (or kitten if it’s the really good stuff.)

 

Mmm… Free-range Mu-Shu Pork!

Be Cool… Buy a Mac!

You want to be cool.  Trust me, you do.  Lucky for you, we live in an age when preferred social status is just a few hundred bucks and a trip to the Apple store away.

Seriously, what is it with the BS marketing by Apple and all the resulting BS techno-babble that results when their simple-minded consumer base can’t seem to find anything better to do than prattle on and on about the greatness of their purchases?

Honestly, I think it’s just the shock that Apple’s group of flunkies found themselves capable of creating a halfway-decent product for the first time in three decades.  For the majority of my life, Apple has always represented the dumbed-down, idiot-proof side of the computing world (sort of the AOL of hardware, if you will.)  If you were too stupid or your needs too simple to justify buying a real computer, you bought a Mac.  At least they were still a company who was trying to sell their product based on its actual functional merits at that point though.

Then came those stupid iMacs.  A CPU and a monitor housed in a plastic case colored to look like a deformed creamsicle?  Please stand-by while I wet myself in excitement.

Then there was the iPod, the iBook, the iPhone, and the iBex… no wait, scratch that last one.  That would be the Mac version of a Siberian mountain goat (and let’s not give them any ideas for new product development.)

 

Damn, I was too late.

Either way, it was around that point that the company started advertising their products not as faster, more efficient, or really better in any way.  Macs were simply advertised as being cooler than the alternative.

Every niblet of information about a Mac product became infused with euphemisms and buzz-words that all implied that Apple users were somehow chic, edgy, or otherwise anointed as the leading edge of some new social movement.  With the iMacs it was always “They looks so cool.”  No they don’t; they look like packaged frozen dairy treats (as previously noted.)

For the first several years after its release, all I ever heard from iPod users was, “The interface is so intuitive.”  Intuitive?  Do these people even have a concept of the meaning of that word?  What aspect of the stupid dial on the front of an iPod is intuitive?  If you want to move down the list of songs, dial clockwise.  To move up the list, counter-clockwise.  Easy to use?  Yes, but not all that innovative and certainly not intuitive.  If the interface of the iPod actually worked on intuition, then there would be no physical interface on the device.  The iPod would simply divine which song you wanted to hear and play it without any input from the user at all.

Now the stupid iPhone is all the rage and I cannot turn on the television or go out in public without being bombarded with idiots espousing the greatness of their fancy new phone.  All the iPhone owners want to tell me how, “It’s like having an iPod, a cell phone, and an internet browser all in one.”  Really?  So, you mean it has the exact same functions as 95% of all cell phones sold in the past three years with the added bonus of requiring all updates and maintenance to come from Apple and all music added to the device to first be changed into some stupid format using more of Apple’s proprietary software… and I will look totally cool if I own one?  Wow!  Now all I need is some friends so I can call them and be seen using my cool phone in public.

Every time Apple releases a new product it’s like rush week in some idiotic fraternity where the only way to ensure you have friends is to run out and buy exactly what everyone else is buying as soon as humanly possible.

Perhaps the pinnacle of Apple’s campaign to become the epitome of coolness though is their latest batch of television advertisements.  I will admit that the two guys who stand against a white backdrop and proclaim in turn, “I’m a PC” and “I’m a Mac” were amusing the first time I saw one of these ads… maybe even the second one I saw invoked a light chuckle from me… but things have gotten out of hand now.

I get it.  The Mac is hip and cool; the PC is nerdy and lame.  It’s the same message you have used in every one of these commercials just stated in a slightly different way.  The thing is, computers (regardless of who makes them) are not cool.  I work with computers all day and then waste countless hours using them in my free-time every evening and not once have a I ever sat down at a keyboard and thought, “Now it’s time for me to really look smooth.”

Have you ever gotten a date because of your computer?  Have you ever gotten laid because your CPU came in a colored plastic case as opposed to a metal one?  Have you ever heard someone utter the words, “Damn, I’ve got to party with that guy, he owns an iBook”?  No.  Of course you haven’t.  Nobody has or ever will hear that about their computer.  You can’t make it sexy like a Ferrari or a $500k Rolex because, at the end of the day, it is still a computer, it still is not cool… and neither are you.

Douchebag Alert! Bono’s back!

So apparently Bono and his band of rich idiots from the (Red) campaign met with the Japanese Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda, to present him with an iPod in hopes of convincing him to increase support from his nation in the effort to “reduce poverty in Africa.”

Why does anyone care what some moron like Bono says or does? He is talking on behalf of (Red) about poverty in Africa, but his foundation does not do anything related to reducing poverty in Africa. According to The (Red) Manifesto, the group will “give some of its profits to buy and distribute anti-retroviral medicine to our brothers and sisters dying of AIDS in Africa.” If people want to donate to prop-up impoverished nations in Africa, that is one thing but providing medicine to prop-up the dwindling lives of AIDS carriers in the most AIDS infested corner of the world seems inane.

AIDS remains incurable and these people are not even looking for a cure. Rather, they are extending the lives of countless people suffering the terrible pain of that disease and potentially infecting others with it. If you want to help Africans who actually have some chance of living a full life, why not do something about the lack of potable water or essential irrigation systems? Better yet why not do something about the warlords who terrorize local populations across Africa and steal the essential medicine and food donated by groups like (Red)?

“So, you say that you BOTH just gave me AIDS?”

It is terrible that these people must suffer through poverty, violence, and AIDS but why not try to solve Africa’s problems which are are at least potentially solvable instead of throwing it away by trying to mitigate the suffering of one group of people?

I do not know what percentage of the money from purchases/donations to (Red) actually winds up being applied to their stated mission but I am often suspect of such groups, particularly those started by celebrities, that pledge to give “some” of their profits to those in need. How much is some? Does anyone out there have the figures of how much of (Red)’s gross is used to help Africa? I would be keen to learn.